


Forever Again

by elena_stidham



Series: Memory: The Stain of Red [1]
Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, F/M, First Love, Fluff and Angst, Gangs, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Canon, Secret Relationship, Teenagers, Tragedy, Young Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 04:09:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20129110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elena_stidham/pseuds/elena_stidham
Summary: "Everyone wants to be a boss's girl. Not that I give a damn about them. But, there was a girl I really liked when I was fourteen.""Really? How far did you get with her?""Nowhere. She died. She was killed. Someone thought she was my girlfriend. I couldn't save her."





	Forever Again

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS FOR: Language, death, violence, spoilers for Shakespeare, suggestive sexual content, a non-explicit rape scene
> 
> SONGS USED TO GET IN THE MOOD: Both my Recovery playlist and my playlist for my own original story, “Memory: Pulse Project”
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/user/twijill/playlist/08UcNbQJ83tKPdZnp57XY6?si=82g1GpSVQsGwoJaWzKKEdA
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/user/twijill/playlist/60dlFJqhN0ZTtkZwrU1Yli?si=3ZnSCGvXQVukPdfzreW3dQ
> 
> I have been planning this fic for a very, very long time. The moment I the episode where Ash talked about having loved a girl that was murdered when he was 14, I knew I wanted to write about it. I held off on it after I finished Banana Fish because I really wanted to write fix-it fics and focus on Ash’s recovery, but I finally started to drop hints about this fic way back in March when I wrote “Perpetual Yesterday” and many fics afterwards. 
> 
> This ties in with my own original story I’m in the process of writing, “Memory: Pulse Project,” which I will give more information on later. Needless to say, when I finally got around to writing this, I was super excited and outlined so much – it’s a miracle I wrote this much within the timespan of only a couple weeks. 
> 
> I originally debated on making this multi-chaptered, but I just decided fuck it since I couldn’t think of a good start and stopping point for each chapter. So forgive me for putting out the longest one shot I’ve ever written in my life, but at the same time I hope it’s enjoyable (despite the angst that’s definitely coming by the end lmao).
> 
> My twitter and tumblr is elenastidham. Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you enjoy!
> 
> -Elena

“I want you to warn your men about the Stayt family coming for a few weeks.”

Shorter blinks, looking to the side to notice Ash had waltzed in uninvited again. He doesn’t mind, really, but it’s always jarring to him how he hardly ever senses him coming. He’s already in the living room by the time Shorter finally decides to call back from the kitchen.

“Who’re they?” He asks, watching him sit down before turning back to his fridge. He’s out of beer.

“A mob family from the Midwest. They’re coming to cut deals with Golzine, and based on how _pressing _he’s been about everything being absolutely perfect, they’ve got some kind of relevance over him,” Ash kicks off his shoes, then shrugs, laying across the sofa. “Don’t seem too bad to me. I haven’t heard of them from over here.”

Shorter chuckles, deciding that the wine coolers his sister bought him would work for now. He brings a second for Ash before sitting across from him. “Can’t be that intimidating when their turf is literally nothing but cornfields,” he grins, then pops off the cap using the coffee table’s edge. “The name does sound familiar though. I think they’re European.” He draws a sip. “I can ask around.”

“Please do.”

Ash doesn’t reach for the bottle Shorter had offered him, but he does acknowledge it there. The condensation is already starting to take affect towards the bottom and around the rim. Shorter notices an extra heaviness around the silence tonight, but he decides not to press on it. He’s sure it would only make the situation worse.

“When are they coming?” Shorter asks.

“I think they land Saturday,” Ash says. It’s Thursday.

Shorter nods, keeping note to get back regarding their family by the next evening. Already, he’s sending a message to one of his men currently posted in southeast Chinatown, but he won’t expect a response in immediate time. “Do you know how many are coming?”

Ash shakes his head. “Your guess is as good as mine. I know the head of the family’s coming, and he’s obviously going to bring some backup. Probably his right hand man, maybe a few more. If he’s got an heir, he’s probably bringing him too.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because Golzine drags me around everywhere,” Ash sits up now, reaching for his drink. He takes a pause, before bringing the tip to his lips. “So if I had to guess, I may be having to make allies in the Midwest or else there could be trouble.”

“What are they going to do, _shuck_ us to death?” Shorter scoffs, resulting in an immediate snort from Ash on the other side. “Seriously. There’s nothing dangerous out there unless you walk by a construction site.”

Ash shrugs. “I mean, Chicago’s in the Midwest. It’s not as bad as here, but it’s not really focused on safety, either.”

“Dude, Chicago’s crime rate is almost double that of New York,” Shorter gawks at him. “You just made it out alive because everyone’s scared of you.”

Ash’s eyes dart up through a glare, and Shorter instantly apologises for striking a nerve. Then he sighs. “Is the Stayt Family from Chicago?”

There’s a moment where Ash has to take that question and try to think back. He shakes his head. He’s been to Chicago, he would have remembered hearing the name from there, and he would have remembered if he had been told this. “I want to say they’re closer to Indiana.”

_Literal corn country. _“You _want_ to say?” Shorter chuckles.

“Honestly, I can’t remember. Golzine was dumping so much information on me all at once it was hard to keep up with anything,” Ash finishes his drink, then sliding it across the coffee table for Shorter to take care of it. “I heard Gary’s pretty bad. Or they could be from Toledo – which makes sense. A lot of Dino’s kids come from there.”

The sentence alone makes Shorter want to throw up his entire stomach. It’d only be natural for families of similar work to ally together. “Is Michigan part of the Midwest?”

“Technically.”

“They may be from Detroit,” Shorter suggests, and it sparks the memory.

Ash nods. “That’s the place.”

Shorter nearly chokes on his drink. He has to take a second, to cough out the liquid from his lungs and then check Ash’s eye. The kid has no idea. “Dude, Detroit is _lawless_. Anybody that can have their hands on that place for even a _second_ is instantly more powerful than Dino Golzine could ever dream about being,” Shorter’s eyes are wide now. This family is from _Detroit_? One wrong slip and the world’s going to _hell. _“I had a guy go there for his cousin’s wedding, and he told me that he had never seen anything like it. They were having shootouts in broad daylight in the _streets, _Ash. It was like _savagery. _And the family has been there how long?”

“If the guy’s got an heir, they’re going into sixth gen,” Ash recalls. He hums. It’s pretty impressive, having such a grasp on a city for almost two hundred years. Not even Golzine has that kind of history. That’s probably why he’s been so pressing – they’re unforgiving. Or they may have just had it extraordinarily easy.

“Oh my god, we’re gonna die,” Shorter moans.

“We’re not gonna die, you big baby,” Ash laughs at the thought. “If anything, if they pull something, they’re dead first. Starting with the heir – if there’s no heir, there’s no way to continue the bloodline, and the whole family crumbles apart.”

Ash speaks from experience. It’s just unfortunate for him, Golzine doesn’t care about keeping it in the bloodline as much as he does who’s groomed enough. Ash falls under that line, and no matter what he does, he can’t seem to strip out of it.

Shorter sighs. “Should I tell my men to prepare for the worst?”

Ash shakes his head. “They’re here to do business, not cause trouble. Just tell your men to stay _out_ of trouble.”

Yet, as ironic as it is, trouble always came.

* * *

It’s night; just around the time where a couple of stars manage to make their way through the light pollution and shine brighter than before only to disappear within the next week. Ash finds himself somewhere – not anywhere he’s been around often enough to know like the back of his hand, but somewhere.

A little further beside him, he hears a scuffle. It sounds muffled and more like an unfair attack rather than a simple fight. This isn’t his territory, he let it be – or at least, that’s what he would normally do. Something about this didn’t sound right. Something about this sounded everything wrong.

He turns the corner and he sees a small group of men – all about the age of thirty and older – holding tightly onto this girl. One has a hand over her mouth. She’s trying to scream.

“Oi,” Ash calls, finally, drawing their attention. His gun is aimed. It’s apparently all she needs, since she takes the chance to slip out of one’s grasp and immediately use her body weight to propel herself up and over another’s shoulders. Landing on her feet, she immediately begins to run in the opposite direction of where everyone is standing, causing the hoard to follow after her.

Ash curses under his breath, then he follows suit, watching where she turns before running up ahead of her by a different route. He waits in a side alley, timing the sound of her running steps just right before he reaches over and grabs her himself, yanking her into the alley. She goes to scream, but he covers her mouth too. “I’m _trying _to get you out of here,” he hisses, letting go so he can instead grip her wrist. “Just follow me and stay _quiet_.”

She obeys.

He leads her to the subway tunnels – he knows these well – and it’s down here he covers her with his sweatshirt, instructing that she pretends to sleep on the bench. He tussles his hair for a moment, slumping down beside her. Just like that, they’re invisible, Ash watching the men rush down the steps and past where they are, thinking they continued onward. He waits a few moments, before he taps her and has her backtrack up the steps with him.

She’s panting, waiting to speak until she knows for sure the coast is clear and that it’s okay to speak with him. There’s a small thanks Ash mutters when she unzips his hoodie and returns it to him, and it’s not until they find themselves taking refuge at a 7/11 when she finally says something out loud.

“Thank you, for back there,” she tells him.

He just waves it off. “What’re you doing out here, anyway? Girls like you shouldn’t be out here at night.”

He went to say _pretty _girls like her, but he refrained from a potential unwanted compliment. He always hated being called beautiful, anyway. She might be sick of it too, even if she is genuinely pretty. He can have a good look at her, now, as she grabs them both a bottle of water – “it’s the least I can do,” she had said.

She’s smaller in size, slightly toned in muscle, but still overall feminine presenting. Her black hair ends right below her chin. Her eyes are a pale grey, and while they carry a significant amount of youth within them, they also carry baggage. He’s seen those eyes in himself.

“It’s my first night on the town. I wanted to look around,” she sighs. “I guess I just got on the wrong side of town.”

“Where are you staying?” Ash asks as he walks her up to the register. She hands him his water bottle when she’s done. He opens the lid, bringing it to his lips. “I’ll walk you back.”

She has to think for a moment to try and remember the name. Somewhere by Central Park. “The Plaza,” she says finally, and he nearly spits his water on her. _Jesus. _That’s why they were all ganging up on her. She’s got money and they wanted it.

Clearly, she uncomfortable by the reaction. “Trust me, I tried to convince my father for something more sophisticated. But you know how businessmen are, always trying to flaunt their wealth to everybody.”

Well, it most certainly explains why she looks so damn modest in comparison to what she can probably afford. “What’s he do?”

“Sales,” she tells him while rolling her eyes. “I can’t be too ungrateful, though. He brought me along for a business trip and I’m allowed to do whatever I want, so I can’t complain too much about how he is.” There’s a specific bite in her voice. Something she wants to say, but not to just anybody. Ash, right now, is just anybody.

The girl finally can finally get a good look at him now, too. She notices his eyes immediately, so she decides not to comment on them. “What’s your name, anyway?”

“Ash,” he says, and immediately she shakes her head.

“Your _real _name,” she tells him. “I’m not stupid. I know what a fake name sounds like. It has a different ring on it than when you say your real name. It feels different on your soul.”

He stares at her for a moment, astonished that she immediately called lies on him, even if her instinct was correct. The fact that she just knew Ash wasn’t a real name to him so quickly was impressive, honestly, yet a scary peek into her demeanour. How many fake names has she heard? How many has she _used? _

Ash hesitates, before finally speaks to her again. “My real name’s Aslan.”

_Aslan. _She pauses, letting the name flow through her mind and carefully take in its melody. Aslan. _Aslan. _It’s real. Aslan Callenreese. _That’s _real. It’s about as real as he is, and the entire fabric of reality tightens on itself. “Nice to meet you, Aslan,” she smiles. “Thank you again for rescuing me earlier. My name’s Jesse.”

He tries to pull the same tactic on her and call out her fake name, but it’s not a fake name. He can tell that this is real, and it’s honestly a little worrying how he’s so used to not paying attention to this detail anymore.

“Nice to meet you, too,” he says.

After a little the two of them find themselves at The Plaza. Normally, with Shorter and others he wanted to guarantee safety, he would walk with them all the way up to their rooms and check the rooms with them. But with her, he didn’t feel the need to. He didn’t sense anybody following them, nor did she give off any vibes of such a request. So he just sees her off on the front steps, watching the wealthy lights bustle and gleam bright around them.

“I hope our paths cross again someday, Aslan,” Jesse smiles at him.

He nods, then waves at her. “Have fun in New York.”

And just like that, she’s inside, and he’s not. He just watches for some time, wondering what it was about her that drug him towards the alley to save her. What kind of energy does she carry, anyway? Why the hell was she so intriguing?

Perhaps he just felt nice. Plain and simple. It was nice that with her, he didn’t have to hide his name. It was nice to know that for someone, anyone, even for a moment, he was just Aslan.

* * *

Ash always had a special talent of creating his own silence. He had to. If he listened to the noise that would surround him and the noise that constantly clouds his head, he’d be done for. A madman. An absolute breakdown of a human.

He stopped listening to the noises he would make in a bed, he stopped listening to the noises of bullets and guns and death whipping past his ears. He stopped listening to the screaming. He stopped listening to it all. Instead, he’d just surround himself in his own little bubble of silence, pretending that the world wasn’t saying anything. It always was.

Yet, there’s one place in his life, where he doesn’t have to make his own silence. He’s surrounded by books and quiet, always able to just let the noise go and sit amongst amber lights and poetry. It was heaven – it had to be. He could just lose himself in some paper pages and he was off in a totally different world, where the noise was no longer his; where for once, in his whole life, the world was speaking to someone else.

The library would hold him home, the library never gave him fear. Sure, he’d sit alone, and he’d be reminded – he’s empty, he’s lonely – but it’s okay. He wouldn’t bring any noise to somebody. Not anymore. Not here.

Except one.

Ash feels a tap on his shoulder, and when he turns around, he’s greeted with a familiar face – a gentle one from just a night ago.

“Funny seeing you here,” Jesse smiles at him. Her voice is barely above a whisper, but it still manages to carry. “Didn’t know you liked to read.”

“I love to read,” Ash scoffs at her, the sound caught halfway through a chuckle. He gestures across from him, and she joins his company in the other seat. In a way, it was nice seeing her here. She was someone from the outside, someone that brought her own kind of noise, but it just blended with the silence. He alters his tone, just to tease her. “You following me or something?”

She huffs out twice through her nose with a smile before looking back up at him. “Absolutely.” She turns back to her book, then lifts it to him. It’s empty, apart from a few scribbles on top of the left page. It’s a journal, or perhaps she’s studying. He leans in to read.

_The sun doesn’t die with gamma rays. _

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

Jesse pauses for a moment, looking back at the page. She flips to what’s before it, skimming back through what she had wrote, then just shrugs, shaking her head. “It’s a reminder,” she says. “That I can’t even stop me. It’s supposed to be some inspirational bullshit, but in reality I was just angry and wanted to succeed out of spite.” She laughs lightly.

“Spite, huh?” Ash smirks. “What’s got you riled up?”

She shakes her head again. “Some asshole my dad works with. He’s Japanese, and he’s trying to run this company like a Japanese company, when it’s in fact, a European company, so Dad’s talking about giving the company to me instead of him since I know it better.”

“Well, congratulations,” Ash tells her.

“Thank you,” she nods, then continues with a sigh. “And then Orochi goes on to tell me that I don’t deserve it because I’d destroy it and run it to the ground.”

Ash furs his eyebrows. “Asshole.”

“Yeah,” she mumbles in agreement, looking back to her journal. She turns to the right page, marking the date in the top left corner, then skipping exactly three lines before starting a new paragraph on a doubled indent. Her handwriting is pretty.

A silence carries on for some time, then she finally switches the topic of the conversation, but keeps it going. “What’re you reading?”

Ash lifts the cover of the book off the table so he doesn’t have to stop reading, but so her question is also answered. _Romeo and Juliet. _

“Seriously?” she laughs. “That play is _garbage. _The main characters are stupid as hell and it’s horribly cliché.”

Ash chuckles. “Look, I don’t go to school. This is the only way I can be able to read through Shakespeare,” his grin widens. “And it’s not too bad, honestly. The side characters are a lot more interesting and there are honestly some _golden _lines in here throughout the plot. Like, look at this one.”

He turns the book and slides it across the table, his finger right above the line to point to where she needs to see. Her eyes skim over the script.

_You are a saucy boy. _

Jesse’s laugh was a little too loud, resulting in a small choir of “shh!” from several directions. She quickly waves through her apology, and holds her mouth still with her other hand to try and tame silence through her giggles.

“Told you,” Ash chuckles with a quieter whisper, sliding the book back around to him. “This won’t take long for me to read. I should actually have this finished by the end of the night tonight.”

“Why waste your time, though?” Jesse makes a face. “Everyone knows Romeo and Juliet both die in the end.”

“They _what?_”

_“Shhhhh!!”_

Ash shakes his head, bringing his voice down. “_Jesse,_” he hisses at her. “Why would you spoil it for me?”

“Come _on, _Aslan, that’s the whole point of it being cliché,” she leans forward. She’s speaking with her hands now, plotting it out on her palm with the sides of her fingers pressed together like in martial arts. “Romeo and Juliet meet, they fall in love, it’s forbidden love, and they both die at the end because they’d rather kill themselves than not have their love. Tragic, tragic, yadda, yadda, story ends.”

“_Jesse!!_”

The chorus of “shhh!” is all around, now. Someone threatens to get a librarian if they can’t keep quiet. He just closes the book now and shoves it to the other end in frustration. “I don’t know why you felt the need to do that.”

Jesse watches his actions, then realises that he was being serious. “I thought you were pulling my leg. I haven’t known a single person to not know how it ends.”

“Well, you’ve met me,” Ash sighs, then places his hand in his palm. “Well, it’ll be a while before I’ll want to read that through entirely. I was wanting to read Shakespeare.”

She pauses, thinking for a moment before apologising. She genuinely had no idea. “Read Hamlet. It’s his best work, and I promise I won’t spoil it for you.”

Ash rolls his eyes as he rises to a stand. “Lemme guess, everybody dies at the end of it or something?” He grabs Romeo and Juliet to put it back, dramatically sighing through his actions and darting his eyes in her direction.

_Well, yeah, actually, _is what she wants to say, but she swore herself to silence. Then again, anything would spoil it if she responds wrong, and she isn’t going to lie. “Come on, Aslan,” she stands too, grabbing her journal. “Tell you what, spoil a movie for me. I haven’t seen many.”

Ash shakes his head. “I’m not like you,” he teases with a hint of sincerity. He checks the time, he has a couple hours left. He wouldn’t mind spending it with her. “But whatever, if you want to talk to me, let’s at least rent a meeting room and grab some drinks.”

“Okay.”

Jesse ends up handing Ash her phone, instructing him to fill out the contact info to the fullest – and he does, all the way down to his address, even. He doesn’t even think twice about it, not thinking she would ever want to visit nor care to. The phone number was what was really important.

In return, she gave hers, all the way down to her own address in Detroit. Ash chuckles at it. “Isn’t Detroit like, super dangerous?”

Jesse laughs. “People that say it’s dangerous are the ones that don’t live there.” She saves the contact and neatly reopens her journal, prepared to continue writing in it more. “There’s gangs and mafia, sure, but at this point what city isn’t infested with them? Hell, I heard of one in the outskirts of Cincinnati and their name is ‘Nobody.’ At this point, gangs have become high school cliques instead of actual forces to be reckoned with.”

Ash keeps his interest low, not wanting to stir up any reaction that could possibly clue her in on who he is. She doesn’t seem to know, or she may have some form of an idea. Either way, she would be a target if she fell in front of Golzine’s eyes. She had to stay away from his life at all costs.

He pauses, for a minute, thinking carefully about his next words, yet he wants to know the response to them. He takes his time between what he decides to say, and he’s still afraid that his words are wrong. “I’m curious,” he swallows hard. “On what you think, about those individuals _in _gangs? Like, legitimate ones. Not Nobody.”

She giggles softly through her nose, then exhales the rest of the way through her mouth. He can tell that she’s thinking, and he can tell she’s choosing her words, too. Does she know he’s in one? Can she tell? Is it obvious?

“They’re…sad.” She waits. “Not the pathetic kind of sad, just…depressing. You have people that have been stuck in shitty situations since they were kids, and that kind of life is the only life they know. On another hand, you have people that never wanted to be a part of it, and were forced into a situation they would rather die than be in. Maybe, sometimes both.” She’s got a glaze over her eyes. She knows someone. “It’s sad. It’s sadder than sad. It’s awful.”

“You got a friend?” Ash asks her, genuinely.

Jesse nods slowly a couple times. “Several.”

He pauses, then he decides it may be a good opportunity to bring it up. “You heard of the Stayt family?”

The first thing he notices about her is the instantaneous flash of _fear_ that flickers across her eyes. She absolutely has heard of them. Hell, she’s probably even ran into them. She slowly closes her journal and looks back up at Ash with a more hardened look on her face. She only utters one word, but it carries the force of a thousand more, holding the tone with a weight of a million others.

“Why?”

Ash stares, swallowing the weight down and getting caught as a lump in his throat and a knot curling in his chest. There is no possible way for him to answer that. So he doesn’t. He just shakes his head and abruptly apologises, suggesting that they move on to a different subject.

He could only imagine what they’re like, then. If they’re working with the likes of Golzine and if they can strike that kind of a nerve with Jesse, they’re obviously not good people. His skin wants to shudder.

“You said you don’t go to school,” Jesse comments.

Ash nods. “Dropped out.”

“You’re a bit young for that,” her tone is still serious from the subject prior, but it’s clear she’s trying to lighten the mood. “You’ve got a bright mind. It shouldn’t be put to waste.”

He shrugs. “I’ve got other concerns right now.”

He immediately remembers his situation – where he’s stuck. Who he’s with. Then his phone dings. He checks, and it’s a couple hours past from when they initially met, and Shorter is asking where he is.

“Shit,” Ash mumbles, turning back to Jesse. “Listen, I’ve got to go. It was nice seeing you again.”

She smiles and nods, her eyes understanding. “Nice seeing you, too.”

Ash waits, just a moment, wondering what the hell it is about her he doesn’t want to leave behind. A part of him wants to ask her to come along, but he knows it wouldn’t be a good time. He has her phone number, too, so he shouldn’t be so worried about losing contact, but honestly, what if they hardly have the chance to talk again?

“Are you free this Wednesday?”

Jesse has to think, but then she nods, her lips starting to curl into a smirk. “You asking me on a date or something?”

“Yes—I mean, no—I mean, kind of?” _What the fuck, Ash? _He takes a deep breath. Get it together. “Just, you’re new here, right? Figured we could meet up again and,” he struggles through his words _so hard, _“I can show you around or something.”

It’s absolutely a date.

“Sure,” Jesse smirks at him, fully. “Meet me at The Plaza at 5?”

She’s accepted it. Ash’s mouth dries, and it takes everything in him to nod a few times. How does she _do_ that? Sure, she’s pretty, but he’s been surrounded by pretty. _He’s _under the classification of pretty. Pretty doesn’t faze him anymore. So what is it about her? “Yeah. That’s fine.”

Jesse nods in return. “Alright,” she stands, carrying her belongings past him and just smiling. “See you this Wednesday.”

Ash just chooses to stand by and watch, barely whispering an echo. “See you this Wednesday.”

* * *

It’s roughly a quarter till 4 when Jesse receives a text from Ash about their night.

**>>I’m going to have to take a rain check on tonight. I’m sorry. **

Her response is within the minute.

**>>Everything okay?**

**>>Yeah. It’s just I have a job and I was just informed by my employer about me having a client at around 5. I had no idea until just now.**

It’s genuine.

**>>But most places don’t hire unless you’re 16. **

**>>It’s a family owned business. **

**>>What do you do?**

It’s the hardest thing Ash has ever had to lie about.

**>>Public Relations. **

It’s not too wrong, really. What he didn’t expect was her response after that.

**>>Okay. I can wait until after you’re done with your client if you want. **

The panic was almost instant. He tries to make an excuse regarding a parent, but he would be damned if he called Golzine his father in any capacity.

**>>My guardian wouldn’t allow me to do that. Typically after I’m done with a client he locks me in my room for the rest of the night. **

**>>That’s…not okay.**

Fuck she’s gonna call somebody. He has to think fast or else he’ll be dealing with some much larger issues at hand.

**>>It’s fine it’s typically late when I’m done with a client anyway. I normally go to bed within a couple hours afterwards. I can still text you until then, though. That would be nice. **

**>>Okay. Just text me when you’re done. **

Ash sighs in relief and he slumps back down into his bed. The poor girl is absolutely clueless, but he prefers it that way. Shorter knows what he’s doing. Hell, he probably knows the names of his regulars, but the last thing he would want is to drag Jesse into this too. This world would just tear her apart.

He hears a knock on the door from his client. They’re early. Ash just swallows hard, before he opens the door. Then the world has noise again.

And just like before, he made his own silence.

When he’s left naked and bruised on his inner thigh in his bedroom, he’s dreading when Golzine decides that he’s next. Normally, Ash is private and personal merchandise. Yet, in the case of this particular guy from the Stayt family, Dino decided to be courteous to his guests and new allies.

He had said he wanted to replace himself on Ash as soon as he was done with his client, so now he just waits, and begs for silence. His phone dings. It’s her.

**>>Does your room happen to be the one in the back overlooking the rose garden and has the light on?**

_What the fuck. _

Immediately he’s out of bed and checking out the window, sighing in relief when he’s greeted with nobody there. He turns back to his bed, covering himself up now, and replies to her.

**>>Why? **

And like the sound of his heartbeat, Ash hears the faint yet distinct sound of nails tapping on his window. He looks back, and he nearly screams. Jesse only smiles, holding up a gentle wave.

He makes sure to hold the sheet over himself as he rushes to the window now, frantically checking around before opening it and hissing at her.

“What the _fuck _are you doing here?” The panic in his tone is eminent, and he’s still checking around to make sure they haven’t been spotted. “You need to leave!”

“Maybe get some clothes on,” she giggles. “Come on! You said you’re basically locked up in here for the rest of the night, so I decided to come and get you instead.” She eyes him carefully, peeking around his room and finding nothing in return. “Where are your clothes, anyway?”

_Torn up and cut into little pieces and scattered across the floor. _

“In my closet,” he swallows. “I sleep naked.”

Jesse chuckles twice. “Okay, well get dressed. I’ll look away.”

“No, Jesse, you don’t understand,” Ash rushes through his words, desperate. He doesn’t know when Golzine will walk in. He doesn’t know what would happen to her if he sees them. “I can’t go anywhere.”

“You’re so prissy,” she sighs.

“I’m being honest.”

“Don’t be a pussy.”

“I’m _scared._”

And he genuinely is. Not of her, not of what would happen to him, but of everything else that can and will occur. She just waves it off, then gestures for him to come outside. “I’m an expert at this. We won’t get caught, and it’ll be fun, I promise. Just hurry up and meet me on the roof.”

Ash literally whines. “Jesse, _please_—"

“—Come _on, _Aslan. Let yourself live a little,” she smiles at him. It’s warm. It’s welcoming. It’s quiet. “I’m heading up top. I’ll see you in a bit.”

With that, she’s climbing up the side of his house. He watches her climb for a moment, until he sees her crawl on the roof, then a thumbs up when she turns and meets his eyes. The smile didn’t fade. He found himself not wanting to decline it.

Ash takes a deep breath, swallowing hard. He steps back into his room, and he waits. His heart is racing, and his breathing is nearing that of panting. One of three events could happen here, right now, and he has to pick one right now.

So, he decides.

Within the next five minutes Ash joins Jesse on the roof in a simple pair of ripped jeans and a white T-shirt. His hair is still tussled a little, but he’s pushing it backwards and it curls up again while he’s reuniting with her.

“If we’re caught, we’re going to die,” Ash says in a tone that sounds typical for a teenager, but he’s being entirely honest in every way. If they’re caught, they will die. It’s about as simple as that.

“Don’t worry about it, I already know our way out,” Jesse reassures him, then she leads, acting like she knows the place better than he does. He’ll let her believe. “You didn’t tell me your family came from money.”

“They’re not my family,” Ash mumbles. “I just live here.”

She shrugs, then carefully leads them down into the side of the garden. She grabs him by the wrist and leads him on, through the shrubbery and out onto the streets of New York over the fence.

“That easy,” she grins. “I bet they won’t even notice that you’re gone.”

Ash’s chuckle is nervous, but he plays it cool. They have about fifteen minutes tops before Dino walks in the room. He may assume Ash is in the bathroom at first. He’ll squeeze in about five minutes of waiting. Then he’ll walk in to notice he’s not in there, issuing a search for him in the building. That’ll take about a half hour before he finally sends some of his men out into the city to find him.

If he’s lucky, they have less than one hour before they’re caught.

“So,” he breathes out carefully, not to give any hint of his looming terror and potentially frighten the other. “What did you want to see in New York?”

“Your favourite places.”

Ash can only think about how her response had flowed off her tongue just so _easily_, like it was made of water. And instead of it being something she genuinely would want to do or explore, she thinks of him. Something about that gleams through him. Something about that makes him warm on the inside.

What does he like about New York? He fucking hates all of it. The city of lights and dreams can go crash and burn in the next atomic bomb and he wouldn’t care to notice if it was gone. If anything, it would be weight leaving off his chest.

“Chinatown’s cool,” he shrugs. Then he remembers who he’s with. “But it’s not safe at night, so we’ll have to find somewhere else that isn’t Times Square.”

“Let’s go to Chinatown,” Jesse says, then. She smirks at him. “You’ve seen me. Plus, I live in Detroit. Self-defence was one of the first things my father taught me.” She pauses. “That Japanese guy I told you about, actually, he was my teacher when Dad couldn’t train me anymore past basic street smarts.”

Ash makes a face. “Why’s he in your company when he’s teaching you self-defence?”

She’s quiet for a small while, then she shrugs. “I have no idea,” she chuckles. “I never thought of that.”

Ash tries to peel the subject onto him so he’s not thinking about the eminent doom that is the Golzine family. “What if he’s yakuza?”

It could have been the lights they were walking under, but he could have sworn Jesse’s face had suddenly fallen three shades paler. She just lets out a breath and shrugs again. “It would explain a lot about his personality,” she chuckles.

Ash decides not to comment on it.

“You said your dad’s in sales, right? What’s he sell?”

“Different stuff, I don’t keep track of it,” Jesse sighs. “I tried to learn once but the list just kept going on so I decided not to bother with it until it’s my only concern in life.”

“You got other concerns now, do you now?” Ash nudges her playfully with his elbow.

She nods. “Yes, actually. I’m home-schooled.”

“So your dad is your parent, business mentor, boss, personal trainer, and now school teacher?” Ash chuckles. “I hope for your sake that you two are pretty close.”

Jesse laughs lightly, then nods. “My whole family is tightly knit. My father and I are about as close as my mother and my sister, so it works out.”

Ash smiles. “You have a sister?”

“Yeah.”

“Older or younger?”

“She’s older than me,” she says, and Ash wants to tell her he does, too, but then he doesn’t want to open up any doors that could involve him explaining what happened. He still has yet to find out if he’s alive or dead. He never got the word. “Her name’s Justine.”

He realises something, as she speaks. He looks at her. “Isn’t the oldest child typically the one meant to take over a family business?”

Jesse nods. “Originally, she was going to take the business, but she told Dad she didn’t want to, so I told her I would be in charge so she wouldn’t have to worry about it.”

There was a particular tone in her voice that seemed to convey a distaste towards the decision. “Did you want to take over?” he asks.

She pauses. “Not really.”

Ash falls into silence for a moment again. “I understand. I’m sorry.”

Jesse waves it off. “I’ll live with it.”

He waits, glancing through the night of New York before he decides to lighten the air some by learning what she does want to do. “What did you want to do, then? If the business isn’t an option?”

She smiles softly with a quiet, breathy chuckle. “Honestly?” She thinks. “I like drawing, so something with that if I had to guess.”

“You draw?” Ash sounds like a child meeting Van Gogh for the first time. “Can I see?”

She fumbles through her phone and pulls up some of her art. She doesn’t have many pictures of it saved, but she seems to have her best ones ready. The first one she turns to him is of two boys, running around a golden plain. One’s bright, right in front of the sun, and the other is distant, scared he would bring darkness in the way.

It’s pretty. It reminds him of Cape Cod.

“Is that anime?”

Jesse immediately hits Ash in the back of the head, causing them both to erupt into a fit of giggles. “No, asshole,” she jokes. “This one is.”

She swipes to other art that is legitimately anime, an anime of a boy in all red with dog ears and a schoolgirl with a green uniform and a bow and arrow. He’s seen it before on TV, but he forgets the name. Something in Japanese. Shorter probably knows what it is.

“It’s good.”

“Thank you,” Jesse keeps her smile light. She looks back at her phone, now, staring at this one for a moment. She’s quite fond. “Growing up, my sister and I would watch this all the time. It actually is what inspired me to draw.”

It prompts his next question. “How old were you when you started drawing?”

She has to think. “About five, but I didn’t start taking it seriously until I was about eleven.”

It’s probably one of the cutest things he’s heard, to be honest. Just picturing Jesse as a child with a glowing light in her eyes and crayons between her fingers, copying a show she and her sister would wake up every morning to watch. It’s wholesome. It’s something he never had. Maybe that’s why it hurts him to know she can’t chase her dreams.

“Maybe, while you run the business, you could draw on the side? Sell prints on canvas?” He suggests. He nods at himself in approval. “I’ll buy.”

She smiles, her face genuine. “I’ll keep that in mind.” She looks at him, and he knows by her look that it’s his turn to answer the same question. “What about you? What do you wanna do? Do you want to stay in PR or work your way up the chain?”

“Neither, actually.” If he was completely honest, Ash had never really thought about what he wanted to do. When he was a child, he wanted to be a baseball star, but that dream was quickly torn apart with one person. Plus, he’s already set on a path, too. He has no idea what’s available to him. What does he even like?

It takes a moment before it hits him, like a ton of bricks. “Being a librarian sounds perfect to me.”

Jesse nods. “That’s a nice job,” she comments. “Make sure you tell me which library, I’ll swing by some day.” 

He smiles, his face genuine, too. They continue to walk, and Ash can only notice how she’s hiding so much of herself from him. Her true self, anyway. The way she walks and the way her face naturally rests, it’s not the bright and upbeat child she’s really good at pretending to be.

He wonders how long she’s staying here. He wonders if he’ll ever see more of her.

“There you are.”

And instantly, Ash is being held still by the back of his shirt collar. He pushes off, and the pair turns to find themselves staring at one of Golzine’s men. He checks the time. It had been twenty minutes.

“You’re supposed to be in your room, boy,” he scowls, stepping forward. His eyes scan, and they notice her. “And who is this? You know Papa wouldn’t be too happy if he found you with a girl like her.”

Ash is trying to keep his breathing still, and he notices how Jesse had become irrevocably silent. There’s a harshness in her eyes, probably a front she’s learned to put on if she faces danger in Detroit. It won’t work here. It won’t work with these people.

They’re going to kill her.

Ash waits for just two seconds, before immediately grabbing Jesse by her wrist and sprinting as fast as they can. They need to hide somewhere secluded. Somewhere private – but he knows she’s on a time limit, now. Once he goes back and once Dino finds out who he was with, she’s over. They’re both over.

The footsteps are right on his heels, and they quickly dip off to the side to where they can run into a warehouse. It’s empty at this time, but he knows they can’t stay too long. They zip around a corner, only to find themselves facing a wall.

“No, _no_,” Ash whispers.

“You can’t just run and hide, Ash,” he taunts them. They turn, and Ash makes sure to step in front of Jesse, his arms out to keep her safe.

“Get lost,” Ash scowls at him.

The threat only prompts him to laugh. “Or what, you’ll run me to death? Bad news, kid. You’re not going anywhere except back to Papa, and we’ll bring your little mouse friend with us.” He grins, and it makes his skin crawl. “We’ll let her live, but we’ll make her dance.”

No sooner does he finish his sentence, his head is suddenly rocking backwards with a loud collision of noise. It’s very clearly a gunshot, and it’s ringing loudly right next to his ears. Immediately, Ash is reaching for his gun tucked by his tailbone – but it’s gone.

There’s a moment of panic, and he frantically feels around until he smells gun smoke as if it was right next to him. He sees the barrel in his peripheral vision immediately after this. He turns, and he sees now, Jesse holding the smoking gun. _His _gun. Her stance is perfect, her eyes hard with concentration and her breath undeniably calm. He didn’t even feel her take it from him.

And for the first time in Ash’s entire life, somebody genuinely terrified him.

Jesse exhales smoothly, before blinking slowly, twice. After the second time she’s turning her eyes to face him again. She just turns the weapon on its side and returns it to him from the handle. His ears are still ringing.

“I told you,” she says, her voice deathly low now. “I have friends.”

He stares at her, panting, eyes wide and genuinely holding a loss for words. He has to find some _now, _or else everything’s going to hell. He swallows, and he forces himself to speak. “You need to get out of here. There’s bound to be more coming.”

He holds his gun tightly in his hands. He has no idea what to do. He knew she could somewhat handle herself, but he had no idea she knows how quickly to resort to murder. What the hell situations did her friends get her caught in?

She nods carefully. “Will you be okay?”

Ash nods quickly. “I’ll be fine. They won’t do anything to me. I’m a necessity.”

“Promise?” Her voice gradually falls softer.

“Promise.”

And as quick as air, she’s leaving, running away with a promise of future contact, leaving him alone with a body he didn’t create. Yet by the time someone else came, he said he was directly responsible for the corpse, and he never once uttered Jesse’s name. He knows what he has coming when he goes back, but he would never talk about it in broad daylight.

* * *

The next time Shorter sees him, Ash has a bruise on his cheek and rope burns on his wrists. It’s pretty hard not to notice, but Shorter makes an effort not to look, nor does he comment on it. Ash knows why he’s doing this pretty quickly on, but he’s thankful for it.

Nothing to talk about. They both know. Nothing they can do about it. They both hate it.

Ash hardly remembers what they are talking about by the time he hears his phone ding from Jesse’s newest text. It comes across the same as usual, her personality the exact same, like she _didn’t _just take his gun and shoot someone between the eyes the night before.

**>>Can we meet today? I want to talk.**

Well, almost.

Shorter almost makes a joke about asking how she is in the sack, but considering what obviously happened before they met up again, it would be in poor taste. He’ll wait for better timing. Ash debates on this for a second, before just shrugging and replying to her, forgetting his injuries are visible.

**>>Come meet me at this address in two hours.**

He sends her Shorter’s apartment location, then sighs. Shorter leaves in about an hour and a half for a meeting with his men, and Ash knows that he wouldn’t mind if he let Jesse in just for a quick conversation. He didn’t want to go back to Dino’s home, but he knows he’ll need to go back in a few nights. For now, he’s just going to stay here, in Shorter’s apartment, in this little safe haven he’s made for himself.

He’ll let her in, just for a short while.

When Jesse comes, she’s careful in her knocks. Ash opens the door, noticing how she’s avoiding even looking at him, like a child who had just been caught with wet sheets. She thinks he’s mad.

He doesn’t say anything, he just steps to the side to let her in, and watches her walk. As he locks the door, Jesse turns to face him, now, and immediately her breathing hitches. She’s noticed.

“Oh my god,” she whispers. “What happened to you?” The bruise looks terrible. It looks absolutely awful. His left eye is almost swollen shut as a sea of purple and blue spread across his cheek. She steps closer, her arm reaching out, but she stops, remembering how sensitive they are to touch. Her eyes scan him, now, and that’s when she notices the rope burns embedded into his wrists. Her voice cracks. “What did they _do_ to you?”

Ash stays quiet. There’s nothing he can really say about it this time – it’s not just something he can easily hide. He just stares at her, with this semi-hardened glance, but soft enough to keep a light.

“Aslan,” she calls, her eyes on the brink of a cry.

He doesn’t say anything more about it. One thing he loves about Shorter is how he’ll never talk about it. One thing he loves about Jesse is that she will. Even if he doesn’t want to.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers now. She keeps her eyes blinking, and her fingers keep flying up towards her eyes, preventing any tears from falling down her face. She did this to him. She did all of this. “I’m so sorry.”

Within seconds of this voice crack Ash is holding her in his arms now, quiet even still. The top of her head is level with the tip of his nose – he could kiss her forehead if he wanted to, but he decides otherwise. Nothing romantic behind it, but it might perhaps be in poor timing. Instead, he makes an effort to speak. “This isn’t your fault.”

She shoves him off of her after she hears those words. “Don’t bullshit me,” she wipes at her eyes. “I am _directly responsible _for that.”

“Jesse—”

“—I should have listened to you. You said no, and I shouldn’t have pushed it so hard—”

“—It would have happened to me anyway,” Ash tells her, finally. “Don’t take it personal.”

She makes a face that looks like she’s been shot in the chest. He regrets saying this now, because he knows he probably made the situation a thousand times worse. Immediately, he’s trying to fix his mistake, going back to reassurance. “This isn’t your fault.”

“Aslan!” she shouts. Jesse’s stopped trying to wipe at her face now, but her hands seem to be shaking. He doesn’t reply to this yell, just looking at her. Something about her – the white hot rage and horror behind this child’s eyes – it wrenches his heart to watch. “You should have told me that you were involved with that kind of life. I wouldn’t have been so reckless with you.”

“You said you had friends stuck like me,” Ash swallows. “The last thing I wanted was for you to have _another._”

Jesse shakes her head. That’s not the point. That never was the point. “I would have _known what to do_—”

“—It wasn’t your business to know!” Ash shouts, now, and her expression changes. Her eyes are a little harder, a little more serious. “You’re here on vacation—”

“—I’m here on a _business trip_—”

“—Doesn’t matter.” Ash waves it off, dispersing the words throughout the air. “Regardless, the last thing you need is to get caught up in the bullshit I’m dealing with—”

“—But I want to help you—”

“—I don’t need your help!” The words sound better in his head, they really did. He genuinely doesn’t need any help, but one switch from any to _your_ help, specifically, leads to nothing short of catastrophic chaos.

Jesse has to blink a few times to process this. Then, she scoffs. “Excuse me?”

“I can save myself, and I don’t want you involved,” he clarifies, trying to soften the blow. With Shorter, he never learned how to walk on these kind of eggshells to keep a relationship steady. They both knew how fucked up it was. In Jesse’s case, he has to hide from her, but more and more about him is being exposed. “I’d rather you leave New York in a plane instead of a body bag.”

Grey eyes shift into a deep glare. “I’m not _helpless_—”

“—I never said you were helpless,” he twists his tone. He remembers then night before, how she was _quicker _than him. How she thought _ahead _of him. “You and I _both _know you’re not. But I don’t want you wind up in this mess. You don’t belong here.”

“Then where _do _I belong?” She says this with the tone of someone who’s never known anything better. Yet, that’s exactly where she belongs. Somewhere better.

“Just…somewhere safe,” Ash says finally. “Please, Jesse, listen to me, here. You already have to deal with being caught up with your friends in Detroit. Don’t get caught up with me. You’re not in this life,” he says, in relief. “Don’t let yourself get involved in it.”

She stares at him, then she just takes a deep breath. Her face is wet, and now this time Ash is the one to wipe her tears away. “Trust me on this,” he pleads softly. “I am looking for a way out, and I’ll find one. Right now, things are just…complicated.”

“You’re in line to take over,” she realises, almost in the tone of a question. It’s hard to hide from that, now, so he just swallows, then nods. He wonders if she has an idea about him being forced into prostitution. Surely, the burns on his wrists aren’t anything less than prominent. Then again, she may not be as observant as he is.

He’s able to pick people out down to their greatest flaws and insecurities, handcrafted professions and possibly what they even sound like – but that comes from nearly six years of being caught up with tragedy after tragedy of this kind of life. Jesse doesn’t have that kind of involvement.

Jesse’s voice brings him back to reality, and he forgets why he’s even here. It’s a few words in when Ash remembers now, why she’s across arms way.

“Let me help you, please,” she begs. “You don’t belong here.”

He chuckles softly, almost too softly, then mocks her tone. “Then where _do _I belong?”

She shrugs. “Just…somewhere safe,” she echoes. Her eyes fall from his bruise down to his wrists again. It’s here where her voice cracks a third time. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Ash steps forward, and pulls her close again, this time pressing the kiss onto the top of her forehead. It’s not with ill intention. It’s nothing more than giving her something he always wanted to have. “I’m sorry, too.”

For a while, the room is covered in silence. It’s when they begin to pull apart after a few heartbeats length of time when Ash speaks again. “You really scared me last night.”

Jesse swallows the lump in her throat. “I scared myself, too.”

Somewhere in the middle of this conversation they find themselves laying on the living room floor, looking up at the slow moving ceiling fan. Shorter always complained about how it was hot in the living room. Perhaps it’s because his damn fan is dying.

“It was your first kill, wasn’t it?” Ash asks.

Jesse’s voice falls, and suddenly he knows what’s coming next from her. She shakes her head. “Pretty far.”

He remembers her stance. He remembers her eyes. Of course it wasn’t her first kill, she’s got at least five. What the hell did her friends involve her in? What does she have to constantly defend herself from?

At this point, Ash realises formalities are out the window with what’s a little too personal, so he decides to take the dive. “What’s your body count?”

“I don’t know,” she confesses. “I stopped counting after three. I’m definitely in double digits by now.”

Ten alone is more than him and Shorter put together. He thought he had too much, but he doesn’t live in Detroit, and here, people are afraid of him. “How old were you the first time?” He finally breaks the ice.

“Nine.”

And suddenly, he’s shattered with silence. She was only one year older than he was, he wonders if she was just as broken. Just as scared.

“Someone tried to rob us,” Jesse spoke quiet now, watching the ceiling fan because she hates to remember. “I shot him off my mom.” She left it at that, but it was clear what he was doing – or at least trying to do.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers to her. “That’s awful.”

“No different from you.”

He nods, quietly. “Yeah,” he mumbles. “No different from me.”

Ash takes a deep breath, his eyebrows furred together before he finally sits up, turning himself around so he can look straight down at her. Both of his hands are on either side of her shoulders to keep him pushed up, but no part of him is touching her. “I promise I won’t let it happen again while you’re here.”

“We’ll see.” She mumbles. Her eyes soften again, now, the paleness of youth lifting through the wind and surrounding her iris. “I’ll do everything I can to protect you from them.”

He reassures her everything will be okay, and she just echoes. They’re going to be okay. It’s all going to be okay. They share a moment – a tender moment, how fond – and they smile, just slightly, eyebrows soft and curved up in relief. This moment of relief is cut short by the loud sound of “Jesus _Christ_” coming from the front door.

Ash cries out, flying backwards and sitting against the couch as Jesse is immediately bolting upright. Their eyes follow to the source of the sound, and Shorter’s throwing his hands up in the air.

“Look Ash, if you’re gonna fuck someone here, that’s fine, but take it to the bedroom so I can still watch TV,” he says nonchalantly.

Jesse _screeches. _Ash is immediately throwing the pillows off the couch and towards Shorter standing at the front door. “We were having a moment!” He’s shouting. “We were having a _moment_!”

“You can have your moment, just take it to the bedroom!” Shorter is laughing, now. His grin is from ear to ear as Ash is scrambling up onto his feet so he can promptly beat his ass. “You two act like I can’t spot bedroom eyes.”

“You’ve clearly never seen bedroom eyes in your life. Fucking _Christ, _Shorter, she’s just a friend,” Ash shoves him away from the door and opens it to let Jesse out. Jesse is holding her hands by her forehead to try and cover the deep red in her face, and her failed withholding smile. “See you later, Jesse,” he tells her.

“See you,” she replies quickly, then stops in the hallway before turning back, her arms now lowered from her eyes. “You free Saturday?”

“Saturday works,” Ash nods.

“See you Saturday,” Jesse waves, then she turns on heel and begins to walk her way out.

There’s a pause once the door shuts, before Shorter just smirks. “Yeah, sure, just a friend. A friend that probably hits it back _just right _when you’re alone,” he promptly switches his tone to high pitched moans, pressing his cheek into Ash’s shoulder. “Oh, Ash, oh, _Ash_—”

“Shut the fuck _up, _Shorter!” Ash shouts, punching him off of his shoulder and storming off to the bedroom so he can swiftly lock himself in it. He stops at the doorframe before turning back, his face deep red, and through his pout he shouts the last words before dinner. “And she calls me _Aslan!_”

“So you two _do _sleep together?” Shorter laughs, and his response is the door slamming promptly in his face. He chuckles, then gets started on dinner for the night. They both know he’s just being a shit, but it’s still fun to tease. Regardless, the fact she calls him by his real name and he only smiles at it is more than what anyone’s done for him so far.

If she sticks around, he’s going to be alright.

Later on that night, Ash returns from the room so they can eat their dinner together. “They Stayt family is here, by the way.”

“Are they, now?”

He nods. “I had a…” he pauses, his words being carefully selected. They always were. “…meeting with one of them. Some Asian guy.” He sighs. “Just stay on the lookout. Apparently they have an heir.”

“You think he’s going to be a problem?” Shorter asks.

Ash just shakes his head. “The guy said he’s wildly irresponsible. But don’t let your guard down, he may cause trouble.”

They share an agreement on this, and Shorter makes sure to remember to relay the information along to his men the next time they have a meeting. For now, he just notices the bright young mind sitting at his kitchen table, trying to lose his mind into fried rice and soy sauce. For once, he just wishes – even for just a day – that he could share a piece of that mind with himself.

But that day never came.

* * *

The next evening, Ash finds himself at the front steps of The Plaza hotel. Saturday is tomorrow, but something in Ash wanted to walk in and check on Jesse to make sure she’s doing alright, even if he’s only there for a little bit.

So he texts her, asking her what her room number is and if she’s all by herself. The Royal Suite, she replies, and she is. She asks him why. He says he’s going to order her a pizza.

However, the moment he steps into the hotel he realises just how horrifically, overly wealthy it is everywhere. Nobody would be able to guess Jesse’s family fortune based on her alone, but if they were to step into a place like this, they’d realise she’s at the very least, _fabulously _wealthy.

He manages to make his way to the door of the Royal Suite, where he knocks thrice. He looks around, not hearing any sound headed towards his direction, and so he just waits just a few moments more, before his eyes catch the edge of a shoe holding the door open. He creaks open the door, peeking around, then allowing himself in. He looks around, noticing every little detail and hating every single part of it. It reminds him too much of Golzine’s mansion. He wants to go home.

He walks around, noticing how massive and open the suite is, connecting multiple rooms and a separate party space. There’s even a library, and it’s here, Ash finds, Jesse is scribbling something down into her notebook, reading from another, and listening closely to the earbuds in her ears. He doesn’t want to startle her, so he just carefully walks over and knocks on her desk twice.

It startles her anyway.

Jesse is flinging her headphones off with a yelp and throwing her notebook on an instinctual reaction. Ash is able to fling it away with his hand, but the corner grazes against his bruise, which despite it settling down some, it still stings to the touch.

“Oh my god, sorry,” Jesse fumbles out of her seat and grabs her notebook to set it down, then she smacks Ash on the chest. “You scared the shit out of me! I thought we were meeting tomorrow.”

“We are,” Ash nods, and his face tinges with a slight blush. “I just wanted to double check on you. Make sure you were doing okay after everything and all.”

She blinks, before chuckling softly. “Yeah, I’m good. You?”

“I’m good,” he repeats. His eyes scan around, then notices how the book she was reading from was a textbook. “What’re you doing?”

“Studying,” Jesse says, walking back over to her desk and sitting down. She opens up back to the page she was on in her notebook and rewinds her audio.

It’s a foreign language, he notices this much, but he doesn’t know much else about it. “What’re you studying?”

“Japanese.”

Ash makes a face. “Why Japanese?”

“Dad was talking about expanding the business to have a location in Tokyo, so he thinks it’d be smart if me and my sister learned it,” she’s nonchalant about it, and by the looks of the textbook, she’s an intermediate speaker at the very least. “We already grew up speaking three other languages besides English, so tackling Japanese hasn’t been too hard yet.”

“You work with immigrants?” Ash asks.

Jesse teeters her hand. “Sort of. Most of my family _are _immigrants. My dad’s side was just British for the longest time, but my grandfather married someone from Yugoslavia, so we grew up speaking Bosnian to my grandmother’s side, and English to the grandfather’s. Then on my mom’s side, it’s strictly Italians and Arabs, so my sister and I had to speak Italian and Arabic on those sides. Needless to say, family get-togethers are…” she pauses, then just chuckles once. “An event.”

“You’re so exotic,” Ash comments, and immediately she imitates the sound of vomiting and throws her notebook again. He yells, “what was wrong with _that _one?”

“I’m so sick of hearing it,” Jesse rolls her eyes. She holds out her hand, and Ash bends over and picks up the notebook, handing it back to her. She puts it back on her desk, then flips back to the page she was on. “It’s cringy.”

“It’s a compliment,” Ash pouts.

Jesse only sighs, trying to think of why it’s a pain in the ass to hear, especially from white boys. “It’s dehumanizing,” she admits, finally. She’s trying to gather her thoughts on it before she just decides on a metaphor that hits a little too close to home. “So imagine every single person you encounter, and the only thing they ever call you is ‘beautiful.’”

Immediately, Ash’s stomach sinks. His skin is crawling, but she has no idea about it. She would have no idea why.

“And that’s the only thing they say about you. Nothing else matters, nothing else about you exits, you’re just there, and you’re beautiful.” Jesse shudders. “You’re a fetish, just because someone thinks you’re different. You’re nothing, but you’re beautiful.”

“I’m sorry,” Ash says, quicker than she can finish. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

He hates himself for what he just said. He hates himself because he knows that feeling. He hates himself because he’s beautiful.

“I know,” Jesse waves it off. “You’re fine. You didn’t know any better.”

“Still, I’m sorry,” Ash mumbles. “It sucks.” He swallows hard, then his eyes fall back on her notebook. “That’s really cool, though. I wish I could speak as many languages as you.”

“Can you speak anything?”

“Only French,” he tells her. He laughs a little, trying to lighten his stomach from churning on itself. He’s still thinking about every single person in the bedrooms, pinning him to the mattress, calling him beautiful. Now he thinks of one that says it to him in French. “I hate it, honestly.”

Jesse raises an eyebrow. “Why? It’s a pretty language.”

“It sounds like someone summoned a loogie and decided to vomit it at you.” This immediately causes Jesse to burst into a fit of giggles. The sound of this, and Ash’s mind begins to clear. He smiles, and continues. “Like, who the fuck designed it? The whole thing’s a mess. You speak it, and you’re a mess, the person you’re talking to is a mess, the entirety of France falls apart. It’s a mess.”

“Jesus Christ, Aslan,” Jesse laughs. “You haven’t heard anything until you’ve heard Arabic. _That’s _a language you will _feel _the phlegm you’re speaking with.” She giggles a little more, then beckons him over to sit with her hand. He does.

“Tell me something in French,” she says finally. “I wanna learn.”

He takes a deep breath, trying to think of something that _doesn’t _immediately make his skin crawl. He then chuckles twice, before shrugging. “Quelquechose.”

“What’s that mean?” Jesse asks, light eyed.

“Something.”

“No, seriously.”

“No, seriously,” Ash repeats. “It means something. You asked me to say something.”

She hits his arm, furring her eyebrows together and huffing out in frustration. “Come on, don’t be a smartass.”

“Okay, okay, fine,” he thinks for a moment. He looks at her carefully, watching her patiently wait for his response, but he doesn’t want to say anything. Everything he’s learned has come from the Golzine family, and it makes him want to vomit. He can’t say a single phrase that doesn’t remind before he finally decides to translate a sentence from a poem he had read in his older brother’s notebook.

He can say something if they’re Griffin’s words. He would never say them if they’re Golzine’s. He composes himself, then meets eyes with her. “_En ta âme gît ma mort et ma vie_.”

She smiles softly. She doesn’t have to know what it means to know what he’s meaning with his tone of voice and how softly he speaks. She holds the way it sounds for a moment to three, before she finally asks him what it means.

_Your soul holds my death and my life. _

She looks at him like she wants to kiss him. He looks at her like she’s a garden of light. There’s a moment where neither of them say anything at all, before he asks her to repeat it. For once, he wants to hear French from someone that won’t utilize it as a weapon. For once, he wants to be able to listen to the language and not wish he was buried into the ground.

So she repeats, and suddenly it’s beautiful. Suddenly he knows why every girl he’s ever noticed before in the library has a fixation with Paris on their notebooks and rehearse avoir off their tongue. Suddenly he learns why it’s called the language of love. Suddenly he wants to hear her speak for the rest of his life.

“Your accent’s cute,” is all he manages to say, in a soft, fumbling voice.

Jesse giggles softly, then blushes towards the ground. She pushes her hair behind her ear, despite some strands being too short to stay behind.

“Maybe teach me something in Japanese. Something poetic.” He could have asked for anything, but honestly, he’s never heard Japanese before. He wanted her to surprise him.

Jesse rips out a page in her notebook, before she proceeds to write it down so she knows how to pronounce it properly. She writes it out, then she reads. 君の魂は川明かりのように私を流れる。

“What’s that mean?” Ash asks her, now, and she translates.

_Your soul flows through me like the gleam of the last light on a river’s surface at dusk. _

He knows why his heart flips, now, and he knows that even when they wrap up their conversation, he’s still thinking about her. He knows that he’ll continue to think about her when they part ways and on his walk home, and he’ll continue to think about her. Even when he wakes up in the morning.

* * *

Saturday comes, and immediately Jesse is bombarded with texts from Ash saying he’s locked in his room again. But this time, there’s a guard outside his window to catch him in case he decides to sneak out again anyways.

He’s expecting her to finally give up on him, say it’s over, or he’s not working hard enough for her – but none of that happens. What he doesn’t expect, however, is the next message.

**>>Get out the window when you see me talking to him. **

She’s going to _what _now?

He sets up a dummy in his bed just in case Dino walks in on him in the middle of the night to peek, which has only happened once so far. In the meantime, he looks out his window, then sure enough, Jesse is fumbling through the bushes, walking through the rose garden. She makes eye contact with the guard in question, then she simply nods and tells him hello.

He aims his pistol at her, then she raises her hands and screams slightly. “I only said hello!”

“How did you get in here? This is private property,” he yells. Ash is taking this opportunity to slip out the window. Jesse can see him in her peripherals, but she doesn’t directly look at him.

“Private property?” She gasps. The voice she’s speaking in is something Ash has never heard out of her before. She sounds like an absolute ditz, it would be a miracle if he believed her. “Oh dear, I’m so sorry! I believed I was in the New York Botanical Gardens.”

She pulls up her GPS, then shows him. “See? It lead me here. It most certainly looked the part too, it’s gorgeous.”

The guard lowers his gun, then sighs. Fucking Christ. He believed her. He walks over to her and pulls out his own cell phone to show her directions on his map. Ash is climbing down as quick as he can, and he’s trying his hardest not to completely lose it at her dumbfounded tone.

He manages to sneak off to the bushes and over the gate, and it’s there where he waits for her. She comes out a few moments later, waving back at him as if she were sailing off on a ship across the sea. “Thank you so much, kind sir! I will give the roses your hello!”

The moment Jesse turns the corner, she sees Ash, and his _smirk _that just crawls from ear to ear, and she glares at him with her normal tone. “I don’t want to hear about it.”

“You didn’t even sound like yourself,” Ash says, astounded. He laughs lightly at the event. “You sounded like the most lovable idiot on the planet.”

She moves her hands in a way to where they’re turned like a shrug, but her head tilt conveys something more along the lines of _what can I say? _“Everyone thinks I’m stupid anyway, so I just sometimes play the part. It lets their guard down.” It makes it easier for her to get to them. It makes it easier for her to get what she wants.

“I don’t think you’re stupid,” Ash tells her softly, and she just smiles. “Well, you would be incredible in theatre.”

“I’ve done it, it’s not my thing,” Jesse giggles. “I’m not exactly fond of crowds.”

Ash nods. He gets that. If he had the chance, he’d immediately leave the country to someplace isolated. The middle of nowhere, but the problem is the middle of nowhere leaves no mercy for people like him. He’s already established himself as a monster, so unless there’s a small village in the middle of nowhere that will accept monsters like him if they seek refuge, there’s no way he can make it out of here.

She leads him back to the Plaza, and it’s there he assumes that he’s going to meet her family, but she tells him otherwise. They’re not going to come back until late, so he won’t get the chance.

“I will admit, though,” Jesse comments in the elevator, bringing the conversation back to her experience in theatre. “It taught me to be one hell of a dancer.”

Ash chuckles. “I can’t dance.”

“I can teach you,” she volunteers. He doesn’t see why not.

They hold on this thought before Jesse guides him to the general living space area of her suite. She brings her laptop in, scrolling over her music before she picks a playlist with a general pop genre to it. The music echoes. “Dancing is really simple, you really just have to have listen to the music and move your body with it. Listen to the beat of this, and pick your rhythm.”

Ash listens, but he can’t hear a thing about it. Shorter has had no issue in the past telling him that he’s tone deaf, but he figured dancing is much easier than singing, even if they both require a sense of tone. “That’s literally all you did?”

Jesse shakes her head. “Musicals are choreographed, but it follows the same premise.”

“Can you demonstrate?”

She grins, then she shrugs. She scrolls through the playlist, then finds a very easy song to dance to. The Sign. Ace of Base. _Never _fails – at least, not when she and her sister would dance to it. She hasn’t danced with Ash yet.

“Okay,” she giggles, starting to move, then she holds her arm out. “Just move with me.”

Reluctantly, Ash takes her hand, stepping forward to be closer to her. She’s trying to guide him, but he’s having a hard time following along with her movements and trying to figure out what the hell the rhythm is.

Jesse comes from four different lineages – and she has met every single side of her family, knowing their ins and outs, all the way down to the fact her white side cannot dance. Well, her Italian side has an idea, but her British side? Bending at the knees over and over in once spot while being entirely motionless is what they’ve considered dancing – and it seems Ash is similar.

“You’re so tense,” Jesse laughs. “You have to let yourself go when you dance.”

He can’t just _do _that. “Sorry,” he returns the laugh, but nervous. He moves a little more in an effort, but he’s so stiff and awkward it looks like he’s imitating a dog. The music is suddenly cut off, then Ash looks at her. “Why’d you stop it?”

Jesse lets go of Ash momentarily, scrolling for something else to try. “You’re really formal, so I think I’ll start us at slow dancing so you can warm up.”

The music now, is mellow. When Jesse returns to take Ash’s hands her movements are a lot more gentle now, a lot more dainty. She looks delicate. She looks like porcelain. He’s going to break her.

Yet, when he holds her, she doesn’t break. She’s just a girl that he took into his arms and decided to have a dance. She’s not made of glass, she’s made of bone, and through one touch alone Ash feels his heart thumping against his skin. He’s only heard this song once before, in Cape Cod, before his brother went to war. Griffin had stood in front of the mirror and basked in the morning sunlight, where he just swayed. It was one of the smallest of gestures, but it was enough for him to know that they have each other. That everything is okay.

Until it wasn’t.

Until it was again.

He seems to have fear again, now, with Ash carefully holding onto Jesse while he straightens his chest. Jesse moves forward, resting her head against his chest and staring down at the ground. He just stares at her. He holds himself properly, now, heartbeats and breathing on the same plane – it’s Jesse that takes the first step here.

They do not dance anymore. There is too much at stake to simply dance. Here, they sway. They sway because he wants to learn. They sway because there is no other action that’s quite as fitting. They sway because it tells the world everything they want to say, and they never have to use any words. They sway because their days are numbered and they’re scared that it may be their last day alive.

They’re not supposed to die.

* * *

When Ash wakes up, he doesn’t even realise that he’s fifteen until Shorter tells him. He checks the date and time on his phone – it’s in fact, August 12th. He doesn’t feel any older, but then again, he hasn’t felt any older since he turned thirteen. He’s plateaued at age, stuck on a permanent tragedy of trauma and a cycle of unhappiness. It’s no wonder he hasn’t aged. He’s already lived a long life.

Shorter has an idea of this, and he refuses to let Ash live in it. He walks in to the bedroom sometime later, setting down a Chinese breakfast in his lap. “Eat it,” he says. “We’ve got a big day planned for you.”

“We?” Ash raises an eyebrow.

“Me and that girl you won’t stop talking about,” Shorter replies. Ash blinks. “She’s coming, isn’t she?”

“I didn’t tell her my birthday,” Ash fumbles for his phone, and notices she’s already sent him a good morning. He responds, then asks her to come to the apartment. He turns back to the food and starts to eat. “It’s tolerable today.”

“Oh, shut the hell up,” Shorter laughs with a punch to Ash’s side. He winces, then instantly, Shorter apologises. “Forgot about it,” he comments after his apology. “Didn’t think it would still be sore.”

Ash waves it off. “You’re fine.” He checks his texts. Jesse’s on the way.

“She doesn’t know, does she?” Shorter asks. Ash shakes his head. “Do you ever plan to tell her?”

“_God, _no, are you kidding?” Ash sighs. “If she wasn’t endangered before she would _absolutely _be a target if she was any more involved.”

“I feel like she can handle herself,” Shorter shrugs. “I mean, if she killed that one dude.”

“That was different—”

“—Was it, though? Think about her for a minute, Ash. Well, lemme rephrase that, think about her _differently_ for a minute.” Lord only knows how the boy doesn’t shut up about her, let alone not think about her for two seconds. “Doesn’t she give you…a vibe?” Shorter asks.

Ash pauses, then echoes him, confused. “A vibe?”

“That she’s not who she says she is,” Shorter says, like it’s supposed to explain everything. It doesn’t. Not even a little bit.

“You think she’s a spy or something?” Ash laughs.

Shorter shakes his head, growing frustrated that his friend can’t feel anything he’s feeling. He’s supposed to be the smart one. “No, just…” He pauses, trying to think on how to explain it to Ash without being too direct about everything. He looks back at him. “Where did you say she was from again?”

Before Ash can answer, the apartment doorbell rings. Considering that there’s a post-it right above the bell saying not to ring unless nobody answers the knock, they’ve been standing there for a little bit. Shorter stands to go for the door, but he pauses at the doorframe. He turns back to Ash, saying his final words. “Just be careful with her.”

With that, he leaves Ash alone to finish his breakfast.

By the time he’s done, dressed, and walks out with the dishes, Shorter is on the couch, talking to Jesse sitting across a seat. She sees him, then she stands with a large smile, giving him a hug. “Happy birthday!” She exclaims, squeezing tightly. Ash holds in a noise of pain, but he is visibly relieved when the pressure on his side is taken away. She notices this, then her eyes are drawn to his side. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he chuckles lightly. “Just bruised.”

Bruised. From _what?_ She can only guess, considering the state she’s seen him in before. Her voice lowers. “What happened?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Ash reassures her as he brushes his index finger under her chin. With that, he’s scooping up the dishes again, walking them over to the kitchen sink. “What’s the plan for today?”

“That’s what Jesse and I were trying to figure out,” Shorter sighs. The tone in his voice was more along the lines of he was trying to figure _her _out, but of course he didn’t say that.

Jesse wanted to comment something along the lines of how she’s glad she’s actually having a conversation with Shorter and formally meeting him instead of her knowing him as The Guy That Said She and Ash Were Sleeping Together. She decides otherwise, but she may bring it up at some point later. She’ll decide in the car.

“I mean, I’m okay with just going to Warner’s downtown and having a few drinks,” Ash comments. “We don’t have to do anything crazy.”

Shorter and Jesse exchange looks, then shrug. They’re okay with it, so they leave for it. It goes about as well as planned.

When they’re inside Warner’s bar they immediately notice the lack of people at this particular time of the evening – a bit odd, but Ash is more than okay with it. Keeps him out of crowds. Keeps him away from everyone and anything that could possibly connect him to the life he hates living.

They’re semi-regulars here, it’s a nice little place tucked away underground and it’s the perfect bar that serves kids. They make their way up the stools across from bartender, and Shorter notices that Warner is actually working today.

His eyes spot Jesse seated next to Ash, and he immediately raises an eyebrow, but he doesn’t say anything about it.

“She’s just a friend visiting from the Midwest,” Ash explains to him. “No need to worry about her.”

Warner nods, then ruffles his hair and turns back to his glass. Ash takes this moment to turn back to her, flipping through the menu to try and find a drink for her. “Since it’s your first time drinking,” Ash thinks out loud. “You should probably get something light and fruity, like a Seagram’s or a Rum and Coke.”

“A Rum and Coke isn’t really fruity,” Shorter chuckles. “She’d probably like a Peach Schnapps.”

“Those are nice,” Ash comments. “She can probably try a hard lemonade, or maybe a wine or a cocktail if she’s willing to taste the alcohol.”

“Nadia likes Strawberry Daquiris,” Shorter nods. “Those are nice. Pina Coladas, too.”

“I _love _those,” Ash sighs. “I might actually start with one.”

Shorter shrugs. “Go for it. I’m just getting a beer.”

By the time Warner comes around, he mixes everybody their drinks – with the boys following on their words of choice. He gets to Jesse, expecting something light out of her, but instead she just smiles calmly.

“I’ll have a Long Island Iced Tea with an extra shot of rum and whiskey.”

Warner pauses on this, noticing her look. It’s a go-to drink for her. She’s had it dozens of times. “Would you like a water?” he asks.

She shakes her head. “But, now that you mention it, I’ll start with a shot of moonshine.”

He pours her the shot, then moves onto her mixed drink. She lifts it to her lips before she feels eyes on her from her left. She turns, then chuckles at the faces the boys were making. “Mistake number one was assuming I’ve never drank before,” she smirks, then downs the shot. All she does is briefly pucker her face, then turn back to them. “And mistake number two was not wanting to say cheers before we began.”

By the time she’s done with her sentence, Warner is sliding her the Long Island Iced Tea.

Jesse doesn’t talk about how she can be a borderline functioning alcoholic, but she does move the conversation forward once she sips on her mixed drink. “What was the plan for here? Just a chill time or are we here to get blackout drunk?”

Shorter and Ash look at each other, not quite sure how to respond to it. Ash is more taken aback by before, and Shorter just gives him a knowing look – there is more to her than what she seems. There is more than what Ash wants to believe.

Shorter has to be the one to actually say something and intervene. “Depends on your tolerance.”

“I’m unfortunately not a lightweight,” Jesse comments. Ash immediately takes note of one thing.

Unfortunately?

“Then in our case, we’re going to relax and have a good time. In Ash’s case, he’s going to be blackout after two drinks,” he laughs. “He can’t handle alcohol well.”

And he’s right. Literally two drinks in and Ash is having trouble forming words. He’s still conscious enough to drink, so Jesse makes sure he gets a water. In that time, Shorter had drawn his attention to Jesse, watching her remain unphased from all that she’s drinking. “How long have you been drinking?” He asks her.

She shrugs. “If I had to guess, since I was like, nine. I didn’t get more serious with it until I was about thirteen, though.”

It’s only been a little over a year. What the hell was she drinking for? Especially something as strong as a Long Island Iced Tea – to the point to where she can customize it to a perfect drink. What is she desperately forgetting?

“A bit young, don’t you think?” Shorter comments.

“So are you,” she says back within a second.

He holds a stare with her. “Who are you?”

“What do you mean?” Her voice closes down to something more serious, like she knows he’s going somewhere. Her usual act isn’t working anymore.

“I mean exactly that,” Shorter narrows his eyes. “Who _are _you?”

She waits, but Ash catches her eye and she immediately draws attention to it. He’s making a mess with his water on the counter, and she offers to go to the restroom to get some paper towels for it. As she sits up and leaves, Shorter follows her.

He turns the corner and immediately grabs her above her elbow, not realising that within three seconds after it his face is being pressed against the wall with brute force, his other arm stuck as she uses his grip to her advantage.

“Don’t touch me,” is all she says, simply.

Shorter swallows hard. He’s thinking the worst, trying to figure her out and how exactly to confront it until the words finally slip out. “You’re one of Dino’s spies, aren’t you?”

She furs her eyebrows together. “Who the fuck is Dino?”

Normally, Shorter can tell when someone is lying almost instantly. He can pick apart pitch and tone and just the way the air feels overall when a lie speaks, he’s always been able to pick apart fact from fiction. He expected this to be a lie, he expected it to be a wonderful act to get him to back off, but it’s…not. It’s completely honest. Jesse has no idea who he is.

“Arthur, then?”

“That was a fun cartoon,” she comments. “But seriously. I don’t know these people.”

She doesn’t. But how?

_Who the fuck is she?_

“Then how can you do all of this?” He asks, almost spitting up against the wall. Her grip is strong. It’s absolutely trained in. “Then how do you know so much about things a normal person would never know?”

She makes a face. “Normal person?”

“Someone that doesn’t know what you know. Someone that can’t do the things you do. Enough beating around the bush.” And with this, Shorter manages to slip through her arms and now press her against the other wall on the opposite side, holding her head still by his forearm against her neck. “Who _are _you?”

He missed a spot, and it shows – with the tip of a blade tickling the bottom of his jaw, ghosting above his neck. “I think it’s best if you let me go,” Jesse says, her voice lower than what’s beneath the Earth. He hesitates, but he listens to her, watching her eyes flicker between phases. She’s reading him just as much as he’s reading her. The blade is still drawn. It’s personalised, the initials _J.A.S._ artfully etched in cursive on the side.

“I get it now,” he says. He scoffs lightly. “You’re in witness protection.”

Jesse snorts, holding herself together, before she just sighs. Stupid, she thinks. He’s so _stupid. _She looks back at him with a half smirk. “You got me,” she says. She grabs a few paper towels, now, then begins to walk past him, closing the knife and tucking it back into her back pocket. “Now please, excuse me.”

And with that, she’s back at the counter, wiping at Ash’s face and his mess as if none of that ever happened.

Shorter, in response, is asking for a double shot of tequila to blur his mind. In the time that it takes Ash to sober up just enough to where he’s more fun to be around, Shorter had a few more drinks and has now stooped to his level. He mumbles an apology to Jesse about earlier, but she just waves it off. As long as they’re cool with each other from here on out, that’s all she asks, so they are. She remains completely unphased. _Fun. _This is a day of _fun. _

“I’mmmwanna break somsuff,” Shorter slurs his sounds together, but both kids instantly know what he means.

Ash is instantly reeling at the idea. “_Yessss, _Shorter,” he giggles. “Let’s go-an-break some stuff.”

They drag Jesse along, and she’s fine with it. She’s there now to make sure neither of them get up to anything too stupid. As they pass Central Park, however, Jesse stops, tugging Ash by his shirt for a moment and handing Shorter her cell phone.

“Aslan, the moon is beautiful tonight,” she comments. “Can you take a picture of us with it?”

Shorter nods, fumbling with the device, with neither of them knowing her double meaning. He holds it up, counting down from three, and then there’s the sound of clicking.

One. Two. Three.

When Ash wakes up the next morning with one of the worst hangovers of his life, the first thing he sees is a photo in his messages. There they are, bright and happy and beautiful, like nothing would step into their lives and rip them away. He saves it. He makes it his wallpaper.

He looks into her eyes in the picture and all he can do is smile at what lies there. He doesn’t know. Soon he will learn.

He will learn who she truly is.

* * *

There’s a reason Ash always has to stay with Shorter. If he stayed with Dino as his permanent address, he would go absolutely mad. He would go completely insane. The only way he’s able to make it through easier now is _because _of Shorter – and now Jesse. Yet he knows, she won’t stay here long. Soon she will live. Soon their distance is only measured by a phone call rather than a walk through town.

**>>I can’t leave again.**

He doesn’t know what she’ll conjure up this time. She can’t trick a guard twice in the timespan of one week – hell, she can’t even show her face around here ever again without suddenly being found out.

Still, after about fifteen minutes, Ash hears tapping on his window. He turns, and all he can do is chuckle now, watching her wave. He opens the latch, wanting to hear what she has to say this time, but instead, she’s crawling into his room. She’s stepping over the ledge and hopping into the estate now, instructing Aslan to close the window behind her.

“I just decided to stay with you until you fall asleep, then I’ll leave,” Jesse grins at him. “If you don’t mind, that is.”

Ash smiles warmly at her. “I don’t mind.”

He closes and locks the window before dimming down his lights, heading towards his drawers. He’s going to get into pyjamas, then. He doesn’t want her in danger for too long. “How did you even get past the guard?”

She shrugs. “Brought a stray cat and threw him into the bushes to make it seem like someone’s rustling over there,” she chuckles. “I bet he feels dumb.”

Ash just laughs at it. Of course he does, of course she did. He wouldn’t expect anything less out of her, and it only makes him want to protect her even more. He has her turn so he can get dressed, but when he’s done, he just goes and sits on his bed, where she joins him to talk.

“You still hungover?” she asks.

He shakes his head. “I’m good,” he says. “You?”

She shakes her head. “I’m good, too.”

Ash pauses, suddenly remembering something before he turns to face her. “Shorter said you were in the Witness Protection Program.”

“Shorter’s a fucking idiot.”

“So you’re not in the system?”

“Hell no,” she laughs. “I have no idea what made him think I was to begin with, but I’m just letting him believe it so he’s out of my hair.”

Ash just shrugs, waiting for Jesse to explain what really is going on, but she doesn’t. She prefers to keep herself private, it seems, and he doesn’t honestly blame her. It’s relieving not having to explain himself to someone, so he wouldn’t have them explain themselves to him either.

He doesn’t know where to take the conversation next, so he just decides to throw out a random question he’s never thought they discussed before. “You got a middle name?”

Jesse nods. “Ann.”

_Jesse Ann. _

“That’s pretty,” he comments quietly. She thanks him, then asks for his in return. He tells her Jade. It’s real. Aslan Jade. _That’s _real, and that’s who he is.

Looking back on it, now, Ash doesn’t even remember what all they talk about after their middle names. All he knows is that she falls asleep before he does, and he lets her rest there for a while, before he gently scoots closer and pushes her hair out of her face and shakes her a little by her arm. She mumbles something, then tucks herself against his chest, in his arms, surrounding his scent.

Ash freezes for just a moment, not wanting to touch her, but he can’t help but wonder the way her little mind dreams – the way her hair gleams, the way her eyes shake. Her breath is slow, and it’s all that Ash needs left before he finally lets himself rest his arms around her.

He had never felt more comfortable in an embrace until this exact moment. He had never wanted to hold someone more. He had never fallen asleep so quickly. He had never felt so safe, so fast.

The sound of voices down the hall is what wakes Ash up early that next morning, and he suddenly realises he’s still holding her. And someone’s _coming. _

Frantically, he shoots up, rushing to the door to lock it and then back to the bed and he shakes her up. “Jesse, Jesse,” he whispers carefully. “You have to get out of here.” She can barely form words until she too, can hear the voices echoing. Someone’s coming _fast. _

The two rush to the window and immediately Ash unlocks it and opens it up, looking around before telling her to go. She steps off the bed, apologising profusely and promising that she’ll make it up to him.

“Don’t worry about me,” Ash hushes to her. Suddenly, the doorknob rustles. Dino calls for him, and Ash has to close his eyes, taking a deep breath and swallowing hard. “I can get you out of here. I can do this, just…just don’t look at me, when I do.”

“What?” Jesse whispers.

“Don’t look at me, _please,_” he begs now. “I don’t want you to see me like this.”

She nods, then she turns her head, before Ash’s eyes flicker to someone else. He turns back to the door, cracking it just slightly and pushing out his hips in a suggestion. “Yes, sir?” His tone isn’t even his anymore. He sounds like the girls they would make fun of in porn. He sounds like a slut.

“I’m coming in,” Dino announces, before Ash just shushes him, grazing his fingers along his lips and down his chin and neck.

“I want to surprise you,” he sighs in a way that’s absolutely seductive. He doesn’t let the door budge at all. “May I have a moment?”

He pauses, wetting his lips by pressing them against his tongue before he finally nods and closes the door. Ash locks it, waits a few moments, before he immediately turns back and rushes to Jesse, urging her to step out onto the balcony.

“But what about you?” She asks, her face filled to the brim with worry, and it only makes Ash hate himself.

“I’ll be fine,” he reassures her. He waits, before he leans over and kisses the top of her head. He takes a deep breath, then draws the window to a close. “Now, go.”

She climbs up onto the roof, knowing the way out, but not knowing what Ash is going to do next with the disgusting man that he had to speak to as if he was only property. All she hopes now is that everything will be okay. She trusts him, but she doesn’t trust what could happen to him. There are too many people in this world that would tear apart people like Aslan Callenreese. Jesse’s seen it too many times.

When she escapes, all she can remember is his middle name, caught between his eyes like a curse and flame.

* * *

Ash can only close his eyes and hope to project out of his body until it’s over. Until he’s _done. _

He’s not tied up this time, thank god, but he’s rather stuck by a grip alone, and so all he can do is just clench his eyes and push through the noise until finally there’s silence again. His face is pressed against the mattress, pain coursing through his entire bloodstream and he waits and waits for time to finally stop slowing down.

It doesn’t.

He’s already memorised every surface and pattern and texture of this entire damn estate, so now he’s trying to think of ways to get himself out of his body without actually dying. He can’t stay in anymore. He’ll lose himself – he’ll lose everything he has.

He pictures himself somewhere else, with Shorter, out along the grass and away from the rest of the world. There’s a girl there, too, wearing a hat with a bow and a white sundress with her face gleaming towards the sun. She turns back to him, her hair the only dark piece of this fantasy, her face bright and wonderful as she holds her hat down and extends a free arm to him.

Why is he dreaming about her?

He reaches forward and takes her hand, then Jesse pulls him towards the sun, still holding her hat down as the wind brushes through their clothes and touches their bodies to retain something other than heat. Her hand is soft. Her smile is warm. Everything about her is radiant when she looks at him, her grey eyes are almost tinged a light blue. She’s electric.

Ash remembers how she felt with her in his arms. He remembers the sound of her voice. He remembers how she’s the very thing in this world that’s making him wake up and fight and have something to protect. Something to love.

_Oh my god. _

He’s in love with her. He’s absolutely _smitten. _Everything she radiates comes in shades of blue and her soul gleams with every shade of gold, even if her eyes are grey. There is more colour in his life now that she’s in it. And he’s in _love _with her.

Why is he in love with her? She’s pretty, yes, but he isn’t swayed by pretty! He’s used to seeing pretty in men that want his body and he’s used to pretty having to sell themselves to get by. Yet, she’s a different kind of pretty. She’s pretty, sure, but the rest of her beauty lies in her soul.

That soul. That beautiful, beautiful, soul. It’s a soul that’s golden. It’s a soul that’s wholesome. She’s just kind and wonderful and innocent and so perfectly oblivious—oblivious. That’s the word. _Oblivious_. She has no idea, and for once in his life he can be someone he’s meant to be. Someone he’s always supposed to be.

So he loves her. Aslan Callenreese is so in love with her.

Even when the noise finally stops and it’s all said and done, Ash can’t lift himself off the mattress. He just lays there, a broken boy with a desperate dream of hope – of a girl, around his age, saving him from himself. She brings him silence, and it’s the very silence he needs to build the perfect safe haven in this world of noise.

So he loves her. He’s so in love with her.

* * *

“I think I have a crush on Jesse,” Ash admits out loud, finally.

Shorter raises an eyebrow, turning back from the fridge and deciding not to comment on the burn across his face but instead choosing to comment on how he invited himself inside. The door was _locked._ “Ever heard of knocking?”

Ash chooses to ignore him, sitting down on the couch and hissing slightly at the pain. From what Shorter can tell from it, what happened was fairly recent. Probably even within the hour. He’s so desensitised. It’s sickening. Ash looks back, confused like a child talking to a parent. “How do you get when you have a crush on someone?”

Shorter shrugs. “I jack off about ‘em.”

Jesus fucking Christ. That’s right. He’s the absolute _last _person to be talking about relationship advice with. Part of Ash thinks that at least half of Shorter’s brain belongs to his dick, anyway. It’s no wonder he’s a fucking imbecile everywhere else.

Ash rolls his eyes so hard he almost pulls something. Shorter is stuck in the body of a thirteen year old, for fuck’s sake, with his dick happy to meet literally anything with legs. It’s not at all the answer he’s looking for. “I want a serious answer, asshole.”

“And you got my serious answer,” Shorter laughs. “I _literally _picture them while I beat my meat.”

“Never use that phrase again,” Ash groans. It’s a miracle how he isn’t already repulsed to the bone about sex considering all that he’s been through – all that he’s _just _been through – but that sort of trauma is the exact thing he doesn’t have the time for. “How about when you’re in an actual relationship?”

He shrugs. “I fuck ‘em.”

For _God’s sake_—

“Okay can you pull your dick out of the equation for two seconds and help me figure out what the fuck to do about my feelings with Jesse?”

Shorter takes a second, then a beer, before grabbing another and handing it to Ash as he walks back and sits next to him. “Do you really want my answer in this?”

“If you tell me to fuck her I swear to god I will cut your dick off—”

“—talk to her about it.”

It cuts Ash’s sentence into silence, now forcing him to sit still and listen as Shorter prepares his next idea. “Jesse’s a smart girl. All you would have to do is drop a few hints. If nothing else works, kiss her. She’ll get the idea then.”

“But what if she doesn’t like me back?” Ash’s tone is genuinely worried about this.

“Then you just take it like a man and you move onward as her friend. If you truly cared about her, you wouldn’t care who she is in your life, as long as she’s _there,_” Shorter’s gotten his fair share of declines, and in some cases they’ve asked to cut all ties. Those were the ones that hurt the most. “Last thing I want is for there to be a wedge between the two of you. If she turns you down, just tell her it’s cool, and you two forget the whole thing.”

Ash swallows hard, then he nods once, slowly.

“I know how happy you are when you talk about her,” Shorter comments. There’s a bite of sadness in his tone when he says this, almost like he’s envious of her, almost like he wants Ash to himself. “Don’t keep yourself from happiness just because you’re scared.”

He gets a text right then, and when he checks, it’s almost a godsend on who it’s from. He pulls her up, and Shorter notices the change in Ash’s wallpaper, but decides not to say anything about it. It would only sound like he’s in pain. Ash doesn’t notice, and he decides to send the next message.

**>>Can you meet tomorrow? I want to talk to you.**

“Looks like it’s settled, then,” Ash exhales carefully. He looks up at Shorter. “Have you or your men had any issues with the Stayt family yet?”

Shorter shakes his head. “It’s like they’re not even here. Do you know how long they’re staying?”

Ash shakes his head, then leans back, confused. “I don’t get it. The Stayt family does in fact have an heir – it’s just he’s irresponsible and unfit and he’s running around New York like a madman.”

Shorter holds his gaze still, trying to think of any suspicious person he may have encountered, or if there was any news that was wildly out of the ordinary. But there was _nothing, _absolutely nothing at all.

“So theoretically,” he begins. “You think he could pop up as a potential threat.”

Ash nods, reluctant. “I feel like he has a connection with Jesse.”

This causes Shorter to pause, to feel the weight of these words. “You think he’s going to kill her.”

“Something like that.” He can’t seem to put his mind on what the hell it is he’s feeling about the whole situation. “I remember when Jesse and I had first met, she got super upset when I mentioned the Stayt family. She looked _scared, _even. I have not seen a single ounce of fear in her other than when I mentioned the Stayts.”

“I’ll keep my eyes peeled. And you should too,” Shorter warns him. “And if you’d like, I can ask a few of my men to keep a closer eye on New York. Just to find him faster.”

“I’m in your debt, Shorter Wong,” Ash sighs in relief. “Thank you.”

He just waves it off. They’re always in debt with each other at this point. Nothing more they can do or ask for than just to keep an eye on each other’s backs. And they do – they always do – they always will.

* * *

Tomorrow came colder than expected. It’s nearing the end of August, and the nights are starting to cool to nearly frigid temperatures depending on the hour. Today it just so happened to fall horrifically cold.

When Ash and Jesse meet he decides to take her underground, down somewhere abandoned and somewhere to where he can light a fire and not have to worry about any legal repercussions for his actions. They share a blanket once the fire’s started, and she’s still sipping on her hot chocolate he had bought from her from the Starbucks across the road.

It’s warmer here, now. She’s warmer. She makes him warm.

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” Ash says after a while. “I didn’t want you to hear that.”

Jesse shakes her head, looking down at her cup. She pops off the lid. “I’ll forget about it if you want me to.”

His voice cracks, and all he manages to ask of her is a simple _please. _She nods about it, then pretends it never happened, and she pretends not to know why he looks both so scared and so relieved. Jesse’s the one that decides to take the conversation and move it forward onto something tame. She wanted to ask if that was the only reason why he wanted to speak with her today, but she’ll wait on that question for later, especially since his mind is clearly frazzled.

“How’s Shorter doing?” she asks.

He swallows hard, taking a deep breath to bring himself back down and continue the conversation as if nothing had happened at all. “He’s fine.”

She nods. “Good.”

Then they find themselves stuck in an awkward silence again, only this time, Ash has to be the one to bring them out of it – and he does. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

Jesse scoffs. “Are you trying to ask me out?”

Ash nearly chokes on his own tongue. How the fuck did she pick that up so quickly? Were his feelings that obvious or something? Fuck it. It’s time to just go forward with it, then. He shakenly nods, and he notices that the sigh she lets out is a mixture of multiple emotions – but it’s mostly just…sad?

“It won’t work,” she tells him bluntly, and it’s like he’s being stabbed with a knife. “I mean, I’m sorry. I like you too, it’s just – I leave soon and you’re stuck here.”

She’s right about that. It’s something that frankly, Ash has never had the time to think about. Being long distance good friends is much, much easier than a long distance relationship. And that’s neither of their faults, it’s just the shitty situation they were placed in. They can’t argue with that. Trying to make it work would only hurt them worse.

He just slumps down and sighs, regretting he ever said anything. He forgot his safe haven was limited time only. He forgot that she’s a branch of cherry blossoms. He forgot that nothing good lasts long in this world. He forgot it’s gone so soon. Nothing lasts forever, not even memories. Not even Jesse.

“At least,” Ash begins, working up the courage to build this question. “Can I kiss you?”

Jesse smiles. It’s that damn smile of hers that got him in so much trouble to begin with, and it will continue to be that smile that will keep him gladly running into trouble. She scoots closer to him. “Of course you can.”

He’s scared. He’s kissed a girl before, he’s kissed many people before – but those kisses were all empty. They all lacked meaning. They all were for nothing other than obligation and force. With her, they’re nothing like that. They’re something special. Something meaningful. Something _real. _

Still, he leans in, and they close their eyes.

Their breaths touch before their lips come into contact. They hold themselves in this lock for just a few seconds before they pull away. Ash doesn’t let this happen for long, because he brings his hands up now, pulling her face back to his and kissing her again – again and again and again. Her hands rest on his wrists, a delicate touch in a place that’s never been held carefully before.

It’s like his world is on blue fire. Everything around him is crumbling to show the cracks of heaven that were hidden right under his nose. Heaven is only known when he kisses her.

His heart is made of fireflies, lighting up at once, buzzing across his mind and tickling his skin with little kisses and tender felt heartbeats. Her lips bring him everything at once, and he’s happy to take it all – for once in his whole life he’s shared a kiss that he wanted to give. It’s a kiss he wants to cherish forever. It’s a kiss that makes him forget his own name.

When they pull apart, they giggle like a couple of playground children at school. They press their foreheads together and just take in the moment, her hands still on his wrists, his hands still cradling her face as if she were made of glass. They could be a statue in a museum, perhaps The Louvre. Their moment of tender carries nothing but grace and love and they don’t know that someone else saw.

They have no idea that they’ve been spotted. They have no idea that now, she’s running out of time.

* * *

The only thing Ash would talk about for the next _week _was how much he loved to kiss her. Shorter is about to lose his damn mind, if he has to hear about how soft her lips were and how perfect her laugh was _one more time _he would ship her back to Detroit himself. He wouldn’t, really – he just says it to get Ash to shut up for the time being, because he would rather not admit how much it kills him to hear how much Ash loves someone else.

Someone other than him.

He’s glad he’s happy, he’s glad he’s satisfied – but he’s in so much pain just from the fact alone he kissed her. He pretends to be supportive when Ash gets a text from her, he pretends to care about their intimacy, but he also has to pretend he isn’t in pain from hearing about it. Nobody loves Ash quite like Shorter does. Nobody ever will. But the thing is, Ash will never love him back in the same way. Ever.

He’s learned to accept this, he’s learned to move on from it, but watching his best friend fall for someone other than him just tears him up from his stomach. It opened wounds he never knew he had – the worst pain of all is that Ash will never fall in love with Shorter Wong.

Ash gets a text from Jesse that afternoon, telling him that she’s found out when she’s leaving to go back to Detroit. Next week. They promise to keep in touch, but neither of them want her to go – so they also promise to make the rest of their time together worthwhile.

Shorter pretends it doesn’t hurt like a bullet through the back.

When Ash leaves, Shorter leaves with him, but they part their ways and Ash continues onward to spend the rest of the day with Jesse, not knowing when Shorter is anticipated to even come back to the apartment. So when it’s all said and done, he brings her back there, just for a cooldown until it’s time for him to walk her back to The Plaza.

He’s wearing a light jacket, now, but she remains completely unphased to the cold tonight. He questions her about it, and she just shrugs.

“I’ve been running hot lately,” she says.

Ash brings her to the bedroom, and it’s there while they’re sitting on the bed where they don’t know what to do next. She suggests a game. They have none.

“I mean, Shorter doesn’t come home for a while, I think,” Ash comments, checking the time. He turns back to her, his heart racing and his stomach full of butterflies. “Maybe I can kiss you again?”

“Smooth, Aslan,” Jesse chuckles.

The blush on his face escalates her chuckle to a laugh. She takes the chance, pulling him to her gently by his face so they can kiss again, and it’s there where they forget she even has to go. He kisses her, again and again and again, and it’s not until Jesse finds herself laying on the mattress drowning in kisses overtop of her when she has to pull away and warn about Shorter.

“Do you know how many times I’ve walked in on him?” Ash laughs lightly, pressing a kiss to her temple. “He’ll live.” He pauses, then looks at her seriously. “Unless you want me to stop.”

She shakes her head. “Only stop if you want to.”

“I don’t.”

“Then don’t, stupid.”

Ash finds the kisses with her growing hotter, more intimate and more intense as his stomach churns with warmth and bile. He’s noticing her hands exploring up his arms and down his chest now. He’s noticing he doesn’t want to touch her.

There’s certain places he’d kiss her that elicit the softest of moans from her throat, and if she were to try and reciprocate in any way, his immediate instinct is to kick back and push her off. Why is he feeling this way? It’s _Jesse, _for Christ’s sake. She’s someone he can trust and someone he loves enough to feel certain things about her – but he feels disgusting. He feels dirty.

“Aslan,” she whimpers quietly after a particular kiss on her neck. There’s another on her lips, sloppy with tongue, but he’s wanting to retract now. He pulls away just enough to hear her moan the quietest of words, but it’s enough to click his mind into a completely different mindset. _“I want you.”_

Ash fights the urge to vomit, and he instead turns it into a cough. He stops kissing her, and she doesn’t seem to notice something’s wrong as she’s continuing to leave faint lipstick marks on his face and neck. Something’s wrong. Something’s _wrong. Something’s wrong!_

Jesse’s head is rocked back onto the bed as the back of his hand sends her there. Her lip splits open from his knuckles and her dizzy daze of stars is suddenly shaken up into a whirlwind of galaxies she never expected to see. She turns back to face Ash now, hissing in pain and confused if this was something he was into – something she would have to tell him a flat out _no _to – but he prevents her from speaking. Both of his hands clench around her throat and begin to _squeeze_.

Instinctively her hands fly to where his are, gripping as hard as she can and trying to pull him off. Her nails dig into his skin as she kicks and gasps for air, no matter how many times she chokes out his name nothing is breaking through to him. She catches a glimpse of his eyes. He’s not there.

The stars in the corner of her eyes begin to brighten while the rest of her world is swallowed in shadow. Jesse’s running out of air. She’s running out of time. She can’t refrain from breathing for so long before it kills her – and by the look of his face, that’s what he’s trying to do to her.

Both of her hands reach up and hit his head a few times, hoping it would at least knock some sense into him or throw his balance off, but neither such events happen. She tries to reach down and around herself to grab her knife, but he’s got her pinned by her neck and waist to where her whole body can’t move. She’s losing time. She’s frantically choking out his name. She can’t breathe.

Jesse grips onto his arm with one hand and holds him still by the elbow with her other. With her legs she locks them around hers and she flips with as much force as she can, sending him off of her and now pushing her on top of him. She takes this chance to scramble off of him and kick him off the bed, still holding her breath. When he’s on the floor she allows herself to breathe, hacking up her lungs and coughing between her broken breath as if her chest had entirely collapsed. It felt like it had.

What she doesn’t expect is for him to get back up to attack her. He grabs her by the ankle and begins to pull back, and Jesse _screams. _She’s been scared often in her life, but there was a different kind of fear that came with her life being in danger. She fumbles with her back and switches out her knife, pulling it out on him and continuing to shout his name.

He’s still not in there.

Ash is reeling into an extra measure of self-defence, now. Not only did his mind manage to convince him she was going to rape him, now he’s convinced she’s going to kill him. Not if he kills her first.

He fights her for her knife, and with the right twist of her wrist it’s flying out of her hand and into his own. He cuts her leg. Then her arm. She screams. He tries to bring it down on her chest, but he’s suddenly feeling himself pried off of her body and slammed against the wall, forearm to his neck and the knife clinking to the floor.

Jesse scrambles up and takes it back, her brain not even registering that it’s Shorter who had pulled them apart. She rushes off the bed, following his orders to leave, and she _runs. _As fast as she can she runs. She runs out of the apartment. She runs out of the neighbourhood. She runs back to the hotel Plaza like it’s the only thing in the world to keep her safe. She runs because she would die if that was something she didn’t do.

“Ash, listen to me!” Shorter shouts overtop of Ash’s screaming. He slams Ash’s head against the wall again, trying to get his mind to scramble up and stop fighting. “It’s _Shorter! _I’m not going to hurt you!”

“Get _off _of me!” Ash screams at the top of his lungs through hot tears. “Get _off_!”

Shorter only holds onto him tighter, not letting his arms to anything to him and keeping Ash pinned to that wall as if it’s the only thing to give him safety. “I’m not doing _anything _to you, Ash! It’s _Shorter! _I’m not doing anything!”

Ash screams even louder, trying to fall apart and come back together on the other side of the wall. Maybe there he can protect himself. Maybe there will keep him safe. “Don’t fucking touch me!”

_“Aslan!”_

It’s not common to hear his real name out of Shorter’s voice, or anyone’s voice, for that matter, but Jesse is special. She only knows him by that name. It’s the only name she’ll refer to him by.

But if Shorter uses it he can hear himself, and he immediately knows something is wrong. He closes his eyes and cries out for him, not even realising that he’s right there. It takes an extra broken sob to get him to open his eyes again, but when he does, he knows where he is. He knows who he is. He knows what he’s _done. _

“Shorter, I—” Ash begins, but he notices that Jesse isn’t there anymore. He vaguely remembers hearing her scream for him. He vaguely remembers how she gasped his name. Because he _hurt _her. “—oh my god.”

“Ash,” Shorter breathes, carefully, waiting a few seconds before stepping back and letting him go. “Listen to me. You didn’t know what you were doing. Neither did she.”

“I’m a fucking _monster_,” the sob strikes through his chest so suddenly. He hardly even remembers what had caused it. He just remembers the screaming. _Her _screaming. “I hurt her, Shorter. I tried to kill her. All she did was kiss me.”

“I know, Ash, I know” Shorter almost sounds like a mother consoling her child. Something he never got the chance to hear, something he never got the chance to see. “You didn’t know any better. You didn’t know what you were doing.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He shakenly pulls up his phone to call her, but it dies the minute he’s past his lock screen. All that’s left now is a black mirror and in it he can see his own reflection, sobbing while the haunted memories of Jesse replay, the ones where she desperately calls out his name.

“I’m _sorry._”

* * *

It’s the late hours into early morning where Ash had forced himself to walk all the way to The Plaza and break into Jesse’s room. It looks awful, sure, especially after what happened, but he needed to apologise to her immediately. He needed to do this face to face. He notices a man sleeping in the master bedroom. Must be her father.

He slips around a few corners before he finds where she’s sleeping. There’s no one else there, and so he closes the door behind him. He steps inside, noticing how the bed is just beneath the window, the moonlight gleaming down across Jesse’s body and face as if she, too, were a celestial being. She might as well be.

Her breathing is so delicate here, so dainty. So beautiful. It’s like she never lost the chance to breathe. There’s traces of purple circling around her throat, and it’s very clearly in the shape of fingerprints that she’ll have to take an extra twenty minutes out of her day to cover up. It only makes Ash hate himself even worse.

He watches her for a moment, and it’s not until she speaks that brings him back to his senses. She doesn’t even move. Her eyes don’t even open. But she’s talking to him.

“Are you okay?”

She doesn’t ask him how he got in. She doesn’t question what he’s doing. She doesn’t even sound angry or upset. She just asks him if he’s okay, like he had just woken up from a bad dream – as if the events that conspired a few hours ago were all just a little nightmare.

Ash doesn’t even say anything, and that causes her to finally turn to him and prop her head on her elbow and look right at him. “Answer my question, Aslan. Please,” she requests quietly. “Are you okay?”

Finally, he builds up the courage to swallow down the lump in his throat and shake his head. “I’m sorry, Jesse, I’m so sorry.” He wants to step forward, he wants to lay on her bed with her and cradle her in his arms and protect her all through the night, but he’s so fucking scared of himself. He needs to protect her _from_ himself. What if he freaks out again? What if he actually kills her?

He wants to try and explain himself. He wants to try and tell her why he thought that she would ever dare to hurt him – why his brain managed to convince him to drown her with his own hands. He wants to rationalise something without telling her anything—

“—You’re a forced prostitute,” she says, finally.

Ash feels all moisture leave his mouth and his body suddenly turns numb. How the fuck did she manage to deduct that? How is she so good at being able to put two and two together and piece him together like he’s a damn jigsaw puzzle? Was she on a whole new level of intelligence? Was he a damn open book?

Turns out, she’s just observant.

“This really solidified it for me,” Jesse tells him as she sits up. She looks at him dead in the eyes, almost daring him to tell her that she’s wrong. “And that one night where we almost got caught. The way you spoke to your pimp. Not to mention all the marks and injuries I’d find on you.” She looks down at her hands, now. She remembers his bruises. She remembers his wrists. “You told me you worked in Public Relations. You told me you sleep naked. Those were all just cover ups, weren’t they?” She looks up at him again, despite the warm smile on her face, her overall visage is suddenly just…sad. “So you’re a forced prostitute. Aren’t you?”

The words cut like a knife shot on an arrow – right through his chest, stuck through his bloodstream as if his body were suddenly made of snow. The tears fall from his eyes before his mouth can form words, and it’s the exact confirmation she needs.

“I’m sorry,” she speaks, genuine. The pity she gives isn’t helpless, it’s the kind that’s seen that side of life. It’s the kind that wants to help him out of it. “I’m so sorry, Aslan.”

He doesn’t move to her, so she stands up now and moves to him. She moves lightly, like she’s not trying to wake the dead, before she pulls him close for a gentle embrace. It’s everything he needed. It’s everything he never allowed himself to have. He rests his head on her shoulder, trying to let himself feel – trying to let himself take her in – but instead, he lets himself do something he never had the time to do.

He lets himself crumble apart.

Ash doesn’t know when or how he ends up laying in Jesse’s bed and wrapped up in her arms, but he’s thankful that he’s there, he’s thankful that he can cry. His head is pressed against her chest, listening to her heart, and trying to drown out his sobs to the sound of her breathing. She waits a while before holding a careful kiss to the top of his forehead, her hands gentle and the moonlight beaming.

And it’s now when there’s a hum in the air, the kind that peels a weight off his chest for just a moment. It’s the kind that reassures him, it’s the kind that tells him he made it this far. It’s the kind that tells him everything is going to be okay. It’s the kind that comes in a young girl’s gentle voice.

“Even if I have to bring you to Detroit with me, I’m going to get you out of here,” Jesse says. “And I promise you that.”

It’s a promise that feels genuine. It’s a promise she plans to follow through. It’s a promise that brings a means to an end. It’s a promise that’s going to get him out of here.

He brings himself to breathe, he breathes himself to cry, and he cries himself to sleep. The way Ash falls asleep in her arms puts him in a position to where he’s comfortable, in a headspace where he doesn’t have to fear for anything. Even when she falls asleep with him, he doesn’t have to try and fight for salvation. He _has _this redemption. It’s in her arms. It’s in her dreams.

So here, they sleep. Through dried tears on their cheeks and final movements of fingertips through hair, they dream of a life somewhere beyond here. Somewhere way far away from New York or Detroit or anywhere they don’t want to be. They’re here, with each other, and it’s all they really need.

They don’t know that they’ve been seen by the time morning comes, and they don’t know he had taken pictures of their sleeping. They don’t know because to them, they’re in sanctuary. In this moment of relief, they breathe. He is just Aslan. She is just Jesse. They’re far apart, yet right here. They’re in a place where there is no screaming. They’re in heaven. They’re in everything in-between.

* * *

Ash wakes up in the morning to notice Jesse had been awake long before he had. She was holding him, still, remaining by his side unless he decides to push her away. He doesn’t. They wait in the silence, in the fray, not saying anything at all until Shorter decides to send a message to Ash.

He sits up, scrolling through his messages and noticing he’s missed a few. They’re all under the same general premise.

“Shorter says he wants us to take a break today, for my ‘mental health,’” he scoffs. He’d expect Jesse to scoff with him, to laugh at the very idea of them being separated and wasting what little time they have left, but she doesn’t.

She agrees with him.

“He’s right,” she says. “We have the rest of the week. I want you to take care of yourself, even if it’s just for today.”

He turns to fight her on this, but he immediately catches her eyes. She looks tired. She looks absolutely exhausted. She looks _scared_, even, yet not of him. She looks like she’s scared of something future, something beyond. Like she knows of a fate far away in Detroit she doesn’t want to face.

Why is she running away?

“I want you to take care of yourself, too,” Ash says, finally.

Jesse sits up and presses a kiss to his cheek, her hand gently cradling his face on the other side. “Of course I will.” She smiles. “I’ll see you soon.”

And with that, he leaves. Ash walks right out the door and closes the blinds on the other side. There’s nobody in the hotel room when he leaves. There’s nobody in the hall outside. He steps out of The Plaza, suddenly unsure of who he’s supposed to be again.

Well, he knows he’s Shorter’s friend. With that in mind, he just walks back to the apartment, once again walking in, but this time, not with any complaint or sob or bruise or half drunken request. He just walks in, asking if they wanted to do anything that day.

“Again with the lack of knocking,” Shorter sighs, but he turns down the volume on his television and scoots over to leave room for Ash to sit down. He does. “Whatever isn’t too intense on your head.”

Ash shrugs, scratching at the back of his neck. “It’s hard to find something that isn’t intense on my head,” he mumbles. “There’s a lot to think about, especially with the Stayt family still out and about. Speaking of, did any of your guys ID the heir yet?”

Shorter shakes his head. Ash can’t tell if he’s looking at him or the television because of his sunglasses. Perhaps he may be switching between the two. He sits up, now, leaning towards the coffee table drawer and rummaging through until he pulls out a map and a marker. “They did, however, manage to deduce that she’s right around here.” He circles an area between upper Midtown and the bottom half of Lenox Hill.

“She?” Ash raises an eyebrow.

“We think she’s a girl,” Shorter tells him. “Lei told me there was someone that looked like yakuza right around Fifth Avenue, and he was with a girl.”

“You mean to tell me that the Japanese mafia are involved with the Stayt family?” Ash looks at him, concerned. He remembers the man he was in bed with. He didn’t have any tattoos, but he was very much a mafia type with clothes on. “I thought they were strictly European.”

Shorter cocks his head before sighing back into place, tossing the marker back onto map. “Well it seems they aren’t afraid to team up to get their hands dirty.”

Ash stares at the map for a minute, trying to decipher an approximate location where they could be hiding out. Possibly around Rockefeller Centre. Possibly by Four Seasons. Something catches his eye, and immediately he gasps, sitting up. “Jesse is staying at The Plaza.” Shorter’s head immediately snaps in his direction, suddenly very concerned. Ash struggles to form words, now. “Are your men absolutely sure they saw her around here?”

“Completely positive,” Shorter leans in. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying she’s in danger,” Ash reaches for his phone to text her, and immediately Shorter snatches it out of his hand. “For god’s sake, I’m trying to warn her!”

“And terrify her days before she has to go back to Detroit? Not happening,” Shorter places the phone on the arm of the couch by him, and he scrolls through his own phone. “I’m sending Xue to keep an eye on her when she’s not around us. You got a picture of her?”

Ash nods, and Shorter hands his phone to send him the wallpaper. What he’s greeted with, however, is his phone suddenly holding a picture of the two of them last night, sleeping in her bed. He has to stare at this for some time, his brain not even wanting to register someone else was in the room to take the picture and just _left _it there.

It was taunting him. Tormenting him.

“Oh my god,” Ash breathes out quietly. “They know who she is. They know who I am.” He looks up, his eyes wide with fear. “They’re going to kill her.”

He wasn’t even scared of his own mortality. This time, Shorter gives him permission to call her and warn her about the threat dangling over their head. She doesn’t pick up the first time her phone rings, but when Ash frantically calls again and again and again, she finally answers, her voice groggy and tired. Like she had been beaten.

“What’s going on?” She asks with a yawn. Ash sighs in relief. He just woke her up. He checks the time – it’s nearing afternoon. “I thought we were supposed to take a break today.”

“I know, and I promise I’m taking care of myself, but please, I need to tell you something,” Ash rushes through his words, careful and frantic in what he’s choosing, but he has to get the point across. “Check your photos on your phone. What’s the most recent saved to your camera roll?”

There’s a pause, and suddenly, he can hear the fear in her tone. “…Aslan?”

She has the same picture.

“Jesse, listen to me. I need you to stay inside. Shorter’s sending somebody to watch over you when you’re not with me.” He scans through the map and places an X on The Plaza with the marker. He writes her room number on the side and points at it – Shorter nods, and immediately gets on the phone. “You’re also really good at spotting people. Keep your eyes peeled, and for God’s sake, if anything happens, please get in touch with me. I’ll be there faster than the police.”

“Is the picture on yours, too?” Her voice shakes.

Ash nods, even though he knows she can’t see him. “I think it was someone from the Stayt family. They may be after you, or they may be after me, and to do so they’re going to get to you.”

Jesse is specifically quiet while he speaks through this one. She has no idea what to do. What to expect. Who it could be that’s in danger, or who had done it to begin with. “Aslan, please be safe.”

“Don’t worry about me. I won’t die that easily,” he takes a deep breath, noticing Shorter is already off the phone. They exchange looks, then a thumbs up. “Xue’s on the way. I promise I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

“Aslan—”

“—I love you,” Ash says, and with that, he hangs up. He doesn’t realise what he’s said, and he doesn’t realise that he didn’t give her the chance to say it back.

* * *

The next day Shorter gets a confirmation text from Xue that Jesse was completely safe all of yesterday. It only brings relief, of course, especially to Ash, who couldn’t seem to sleep or rest his mind at all until he knew she was going to be okay.

He had no care in the world for himself. It was only Jesse – always Jesse. Never him. Never Shorter. Never _them. _He loved her, without a shadow of a doubt he loved her, and Shorter will never forgive her for that. She had awakened something in him within a matter of minutes that he had been begging to catch a mere glimpse of for an entire _lifetime. _He wouldn’t resent her. He wouldn’t wish death on her. But he does wish that she would stay away.

Yet, at the same time, he knows how important she is to him, and how happy he is. So he has to accept this happiness, even if it’s just for now.

The door opens, and it closes again. He thought Ash decided to up and leave back to The Plaza, but instead, he hears a third voice. He looks out from his bedroom into the living room and notices that Jesse’s there, a look on her face like she was stuck in a scream.

“Where do you find these people that don’t know how to knock?” Shorter calls out to Ash with a sigh, flopping back onto his bed and staring up at the ceiling. His eyebrows are furred together in frustration and envy. He expects to hear kisses, soft words, whatever sweet things – but instead he hears sobbing. He hears sob after sob and when he carefully turns the corner he notices that it’s Jesse that’s the one shedding the tears.

Ash immediately steps forward to grab hold of her, and she swats his hand away. There’s a moment where neither of them say anything at all, watching her chest heave as she cries, before finally a broken voice aches through the silence and falters through each word.

_“I’m trapped.”_

She’s trapped? What does she even mean by this? What could she possibly have in mind to speak such a thing?

“What are you talking about, Jesse?” Ash asks her, finally, his tone treading lightly while he notes this is the first time he had ever seen her cry like this. The only other time before she had looked guilty, she looked like she had just needed to get it off her chest. But this? This is raw. This is hollow. This is broken. This has been eating at her for months – for _years. _

She shakes through her next sob before shaking her head. “It was my father’s partner. He was the one that took the pictures.”

Immediately, both Ash and Shorter collectively sigh in relief. It wasn’t someone in the Stayt family, so there was no immediate danger. Probably just a little bit of teenage trouble, but the boys are really good at getting out of that.

“That doesn’t mean you’re trapped, Jesse,” Ash’s tone is a lot lighter, now walking over and placing a hand on her shoulder to reassure her. What she does in response to this is swat his hand off again and shove him harshly away.

“You don’t get it!” Jesse screams. “He’s looking for anything he can use against me! He’ll use it as an excuse to take over the business and destroy _everything! _He’s going to kill me!”

Ash chuckles lightly. “He’s not going to kill you. All you have to do is explain to your father I was hanging out with you and we just fell asleep on accident. Clearly, we were clothed, so nothing was happening.”

Shorter nods, backing it up with a grin, his words well-meaning. “You could also say you had forgotten your phone or something and he was just coming to give it back to you and you just lost track of time.”

“That’s a good one,” Ash comments. Shorter just tosses his hands lightly in the air as if the world wouldn’t expect anything less out of him.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t alter her state at all. “It’s not my father I’m scared of,” she struggles to breathe through her sobs. “It’s other businesses. It’s everybody else that will see that I’m unfit and want someone like _him _leading the business instead.”

“I thought you didn’t even want to run the family business,” Ash tries to keep his voice positive, looking on the bright side of things. It could be a blessing in disguise. “You can have your freedom to do whatever you want.”

“No, he can’t take over the family. He _can’t_,” Jesse cuts immediately. “You don’t understand, Aslan. You don’t understand at all.”

“Then help me understand,” he smiles tenderly. “I’ll do whatever you need.”

Jesse shakes her head, frantically wiping at her face now to try and clear her head up some instead of bottling herself down with tears. “I can’t. I can’t say shit to you. That’s why I’m _trapped. _I can’t do _anything._” She looks up at him, staring dead in the eyes. “And neither can you.”

When she turns and leaves, Shorter doesn’t let Ash rush after her. He tells him to wait, to let her sort herself out, to let her figure out what to do on her own. If it doesn’t involve him, if it doesn’t involve their kind of life, then there’s really nothing he can do.

And for the first time in a long time, Ash feels helpless. He tries not to think about it, he knows that he is trapped, too.

* * *

It’s not until late that evening Ash finally hears back from her through a text message. And all it had said was: _“We need to talk.”_

He offers her to come to Shorter’s apartment, but she just tells him to meet her at The Plaza. Specifically, her library. He knows immediately what this means to her – it’s a safe haven of sorts she had built for herself, and it’s the only place where she feels comfortable expressing what she wants to say. He understands, he just doesn’t have that luxury. Not anymore.

Honestly, he’s just honoured that she even invited him into that space of hers, so he won’t take it for granted. He tells her that he’ll meet her there, lets Shorter know what’s going on, and then walks out the door.

When he’s back in The Plaza, Jesse’s the one that answers the door and lets him in. She doesn’t say anything at all, and she waits until the library door is shut behind them both before she finally turns back around and says something to him, locking eyes while they’re still standing.

She hesitates, measuring their eyes and the weight of the atmosphere before she decides to just cut right to the chase. “You’re a Golzine.”

Ash could almost swear his heart stopped beating. He didn’t know how to breathe anymore, and he didn’t realise just how long he had been staring at her in stunned silence until she finally just nods.

She holds her patience, and she lets him wait. She lets him have all the time he needs, because they both know – she knows. Finally, Ash’s voice breaks through, cutting like a knife against concrete.

“I…am _not _a Golzine.”

Jesse just lets out a one breath chuckle through her nose as her face softens into a sad smile. “Maybe not biologically.”

Ash swallows hard, trying to figure out how she could even comprehend this, how she even knows who he is, especially since—

“Shorter said you didn’t even know who Dino was.”

“I didn’t know Dino was his first name,” Jesse explains. “If he had instead used Golzine as the name I would have known exactly who he was talking about.”

“How?” Ash stares at her, dumbfounded, and suddenly her face falls.

“You have no idea who I am, do you?” Her voice is smaller, her eyes soft and hardened all at the same time. “I thought you knew this whole time.”

The sentence doesn’t seem to hit right just yet, because he’s continuing onward with his questions as if she never spoke to him at all. “How did you learn about me?”

“My father saw you,” Jesse says. “He told me that there was a boy like me, and he told me that it was you.”

“But you’re not like me,” Ash cuts her off. His panicked mind is frantically rushing to try and figure out when he and Golzine were around someone that looked like Jesse. He can’t remember. He can’t think of him interacting with anyone new that wasn’t the Stayt family or any reoccurring customers. “You and I are from totally different worlds.”

Her exhale is caught between a sigh of sadness and some vague plea of desperation. “You don’t even know my name,” she notices, finally.

“Jesse Ann,” Ash cuts. “You weren’t lying to me, I can tell when someone’s lying to me. Your name is Jesse—”

“—Stayt.”

And suddenly, the entire world was flipped on its head. Everything suddenly makes _sense. _About her. About her family. About the Stayt family. She was the family’s heir. She was the one that was next in line.

“My name is Jesse Stayt,” she repeats, and suddenly she looks different. She _sounds _different. Her entire being clicks into place and Ash sees her as who she is – suddenly she’s different. Suddenly she’s _scary. _

And now, everything she said suddenly makes sense. _“He’s going to kill me!”_

He would have known what to do, exactly how to do it, so much quicker if he knew about this before instead of finding out about it just now. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks her.

“I thought you knew,” Jesse shakes her head. “I thought we were just avoiding the subject because you understood me.”

They didn’t understand each other. Yet everything is understood right now. They know who they are. They know who they’re supposed to be. They know who they truly belong to – and yet they know, despite it all, who they really are underneath.

They’re just kids. They’re just a couple of kids in a fucked up situation with no way out of it. He just slumps down onto the couch, which prompts Jesse to carefully walk over and sit next to him, their view now is wall after wall of books.

They just wait, holding onto the silence a little longer so they could swallow through the new information. Ash finally speaks first, looking to her while she still keeps her eyes glued to the book spines lining the shelves. “So the man you call your father,” he swallows hard, concerned, now. “Is he really your father?”

Jesse nods. “I was born into the Stayt family, Aslan.” He holds his breath. “Nobody’s ever touched me without my consent.”

She notices his subtle sigh of relief, while his expression wasn’t so subtle. Ash’s voice is small, almost inaudible, but Jesse still hears him, even if all he says is a simple “thank _God._” She finally turns her head to face him, and he decides to face the music and look her in the eye. He knows what weights are pulling down on her soul, now. He sees those eyes in himself fully, now. He knows what eyes they are. “I still stand by what I said. I’m not a Golzine.”

She pauses, then she nods. “I know.” They wait, before she leans in and presses a kiss to his cheek. “You’re better.”

Ash’s body reacts without thinking, where he just pulls her in and holds her as tight as possible. His grip isn’t crushing or crippling in any way, it’s just desperate. It’s just sombre. It’s just human. He clings to her like a child holding onto their mother at the grocery store, burying his head into where her shoulder and neck curve and creates the softest of hiding places, one where nobody could ever find him there. Nobody could ever touch him.

“I promise I won’t let anybody touch you,” he whispers into her skin. “In any way.”

Still, Jesse reaches her arms up and holds onto him too. She closes her eyes, just waiting, remember what he’s said to her, remembering where they are. She knows where they’re going to be. An idea pops into her head, something she’s always wanted to do, but it’s an idea she was always scared of manifesting. Yet now, with Ash in her arms, she feels like she can tackle anything. She feels like she can tackle everything.

“Hey, Aslan,” Jesse whispers, finally. “Let’s run away.”

* * *

Ash ends up back at Shorter’s apartment well after the evening and into the early hours of the night’s morning. Shorter was wide awake, waiting to make sure he was okay, and when he noticed that he was, he didn’t say anything. He just yawns and stands up, heading back to the bedroom and stopping once he hears his friend’s voice.

“I found it, Shorter.”

He turns back around and leans against the doorframe. “Found what?”

“A way out,” he breathes. He’s gleaming with relief, with hope and rhapsody. “I’m going to Detroit with Jesse. I can finally get out.” His voice is shaking, but in the best possible way. The glint in his eyes was nothing short of joyful and blinding with light. “I’m finally getting out of here.”

Shorter had always wanted him to find a way out of the life he was thrown in, he had always wanted him to leave for a better life, but he never wanted him to _leave_. He never wanted to let Ash go for the life of him, but in a case like this, he knew he had to. He knows that there’s no other choice here.

He knows he’s about to lose his best friend.

“Really?” Shorter asks, smiling sadly. Ash doesn’t notice the sadness.

Instead, he nods eagerly, his chest heaving and featherlight, the tears the most wonderful sensation he could feel. It reminds him that he’s here. It reminds him that he’s alive. It reminds him that in just a couple nights, he’ll come back from the dead – and his name will be Aslan.

“They leave the morning after tomorrow. They leave _really _early, and so I’m sneaking into the hotel room tomorrow night and then I just go back with her,” his smile is _beaming. _His eyes are glistening. Shorter has never seen this sort of joy in him ever before – not even when he laughs. Not even when he was in prison. “When I’m there I’m gonna help her throw out her father’s partner and then she can leave the family without any guilt. We’re going somewhere after that. Somewhere to start a new life. We don’t know yet, we’ll figure it out when we get there.”

Shorter swallows hard. He knows what’s coming from it. He knows what he has to let go of. He knows _who _he has to let go of. “That’s…great, Ash,” he smiles a little wider, trying to convince himself that it really is. It _is, _after all, for _Ash. _This isn’t about him. It’s about Ash. It’s about his redemption. It’s about his escape. “I’m so happy for you.”

Ash just walks up to him now, pulling him close to a tight hug and closing his eyes tightly. “Thank you, Shorter. Thank you so much for everything. I promise, once she and I are secured we’ll get you and Nadia out, too. You could live next to us,” he chuckles lightly and steps back to look at his best friend. “Thank you, Shorter. _Thank you._”

It’s the closest they’ve ever come to saying goodbye.

* * *

Tomorrow comes, and all Ash has to do is keep himself busy in the day before he finally escapes in the night. It’s only rational he spends the day with Jesse, of course, but thankfully this time they have an actual planned event for the day that she has not yet got to do: thrift shopping.

The Stayt family comes from wealth, so her father and his partner had no issue taking her up and down 5th Avenue, flaunting their status and bedazzling themselves in luxury. Jesse hated every second of it. She wanted to go somewhere rundown, somewhere with people that aren’t like her – with people that house a heart of gold.

Ash’s heart was gold while he ate off of golden plates. He lived in and out of homeless shelters while sitting in the lap of luxury. He was in the middle. He was divided by pieces all made for instructions to a game he never had fun playing with.

He doesn’t need to show her the wealthy side. What she needs is a slice of life that replicates what’s poor – what’s pure. What’s good.

Jesse finds herself with Ash in a tucked away in a little unknown thrift shop on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. There were maybe four other people besides them. As far as Ash knew, whatever she wanted was hers.

He’d pay careful attention to her, the way her eyes would scan through cloth and folded fabric like a researcher gathering data. His hand brushes against her fingertips and he feels sparkles there, only for it to ignite into a small firework and flame when she’d intertwine their fingers together. He didn’t let go. He never wanted to let go.

Sometimes she’d pull something out and press it against her chest, scaling the size with her body and how she might look in it. While a few have caught her eye, nothing’s really stood out to her – except, this specific one.

The thing is about this blouse was that she didn’t know how she looked in it. She would hold it against herself and try to analyse but nothing was clicking. She had to try it on, so she waited until she was done browsing to do so. Ash waits for her patiently on the other end of the door, and it’s not until she steps out in the blouse that it’s suddenly clear to him. Pretty _can _sway him.

It was a simple button up with a collar and short sleeves. There wasn’t really a base colour, as the entire blouse was decorated with orange and red flowers that stimulated a flame, but the hints of yellows, purples, and greens were what kept it ornate and tame. Her jeans were simple and neutrally matched in comparison, but the way the colours extenuated her skin and distinctly handled her face and hair were what made her beautiful. She was pretty. There was nothing short of the word. Despite the uncertainty and the history in her eyes, she was absolutely pretty. Everything more. Nothing less.

He had forgotten to breathe for a moment. He’s just watching her, carefully adjusting her collar in the mirror and making sure it fits right before turning around for him. She holds her hands out to ask what he thinks of it, and all he can think of is the flowers on her blouse and the life in her smile being nothing short of breathtaking.

How he wonders. How he wonders someone can be so stunningly beautiful with just a simple blouse from a _thrift shop. _What can’t he think of? She looks amazing – _she’s _amazing, and it’s everything Ash had never wanted, but never knew he needed to have. He loved her. He absolutely loved her.

“You look really nice,” he tells her sincerely. “You should get it.”

“Should I?” Jesse teases with a chuckle, checking back in the mirror really quickly to see if it compliments her well. It does. She has Ash check the tag for pricing – it’s only five dollars. “Sure, I’ll get it.”

She goes to step in and change back into her regular clothes, but Ash quickly reaches over and grabs her wrist. When she turns to face him, he has a faint blush tinting across his cheeks, clearly struggling to find a way to speak his request.

“Can you keep it on, please?” he asks, finally. “You really look nice.”

Jesse smiles, and instantly Ash feels his heart flutter. It’s like he was made of fireflies, and Jesse had just lit a lantern. “Okay.”

They make their way to the front counter. While Jesse looks into her tiny purse to find her wallet, Ash is already placing the money on the counter. Their eyes meet for a second, and Ash just smiles at her. She laughs.

“You are truly one of a kind, Aslan Callenreese.”

All he does is smile, his blush falling into a deeper shade of red. There was truly nobody, nobody in the world like him – and there was nobody in the world like Jesse, either.

That’s why she’s not in this world anymore.

* * *

Evening came and Ash is finally finished with the perfect outline and escape plan. He pushes through it flawlessly. There had never been a better execution to his plans.

There had never been a better execution.

Ash doesn’t understand this feeling he’s getting, he doesn’t understand why his stomach is suddenly sinking as he makes his way to The Plaza hotel. He’s supposed to be relieved, he’s supposed to be happy! He’s finally managing to escape this shitty fucking life with a girl he loves and suddenly he wants to throw up. He doesn’t know why – that is, until he walks into the suite.

All the lights are dark. Not a single piece of evidence of life was there – it was like they all decided to pack and leave right then and there. But Ash knew better. He knew that something was _wrong _about all of this. Something didn’t settle right.

He slowly makes his way around to the library. Nobody’s there. It’s in pristine condition, which was odd considering how it always had a bit of clutter from Jesse studying constantly in there. Someone was trying to hide any evidence of someone being there. Someone was trying to wash away any sign of life. He walks around some more, not once using his voice – it’s like he knew someone was there. Ash opens the door to Jesse’s room, and that’s when he knows _immediately _something was wrong. 

Her room was completely torn upside down and inside out. Furniture was knocked over, clothes were scattered – everything – everything was tossed around and thrown apart yet despite this still Ash does not instantly result in a panic. Jesse is a Stayt, for Christ’s sake. He’s seen her fight. He’s seen her protect herself. He knows she wouldn’t go down in a simple hotel room scuffle.

Ash opens the closet door. “Jesse?” he calls out, and nobody says anything in response. There’s no life there at all. He swallows hard, trying to steady his breathing and maintain a simple heartbeat, knowing that any sign of fear would give the enemy everything they’d need to destroy him.

He walks out of the closet and he notices something on the floor. It’s right by her bed, and when he bends down to pick it up, it takes everything in him not to start screaming. It’s a polaroid picture of the two of them in bed. It’s the same one from their camera rolls, but he knows who took the picture. He knows it’s that Japanese guy that wants to take over the family – Jesse wouldn’t go down to someone like him.

_“He’s going to kill me!”_

Ash swallows hard, taking a deep breath. He has to reassure himself that she’s fine. That she’s okay. That she’s not going to die. He turns the polaroid, and he notices there’s a handwritten message on this side.

_Don’t worry. _

_Golzine will take good care of her. _

_—_ _大蛇_

Immediately, Ash is struck with panic. He’s fumbling through the room now and frantically starting to make his way through the suite while he repeatedly murmurs a small string of “no, no, no, _no._”

“Jesse!” he calls out in a panic, checking the library again. He checks the living room. The other bedrooms. Bathrooms. Closets. _Anywhere._ She’s strong. She’s so, unbelievably strong. She’s alive – but she’s no match against Golzine. “Jesse!”

“Not here, sweetheart,” a voice hisses from the dark.

Ash turns as quick as he can, and before he can react to anything he’s feeling a hand on his cheek and suddenly his head is slammed against the corner of the wall. He collapses to the ground, struggling to get up as the man who had taken the light out of his eyes steps over him. It’s him. The one who’s trying to take over the family. 

He’s really going to kill her.

Ash tries to push himself up one more time, but he’s clutched by his hair and his face is slammed into the floor. The world now holds no light. It holds no life.

It’s just black.

* * *

When he wakes up, he’s in a room that’s all too familiar to him. He’s in a booth overlooking a wooden room downstairs – he’s strapped to the chair, his hands tied together and he can’t even so much as wiggle for some room. It’s the execution room.

Ash’s eyes finally begin to focus, realising he’s sitting right next to Dino, while downstairs, there’s the Japanese traitor that is trying to take the Stayt family. And in the middle of it all, with hands held up by chains, is Jesse.

Immediately, Ash is trying to fight out of the seat, holding back screaming and doing everything he can not to show any emotion other than the pure agony of desperation. Dino just holds a steady grin while watching this unfold, waiting for just a moment before finally deciding to speak. “Do you know this girl, Ash?”

Ash doesn’t say anything, just paying attention to Jesse in the middle, who’s face is nothing short of distraught. “Jesse!” He screams for her, and she feels her heart run hollow.

“She was going to take you away from me, Ash,” Dino comments nonchalantly. “Orochi showed me the cutest little photo of the two of you. I believe she would call you by your real name. He told me she was your girlfriend. Is that correct?”

That bastard. He has a fucking name. Orochi is clearly a fake one he’s choosing to go by, but Ash will be damned if he doesn’t remember it – because he’s going to fucking kill him for this once he gets her out of there. “Keep your fucking hands off her!” He yells to the both of them, now. “She didn’t do anything wrong!”

“Well, last I checked she tried stealing my property,” Dino says smoothly.

Orochi finally speaks out, now, saying something to him other than what a pretty boy he is. “Last I checked, she’s taking my family.”

“The Stayt family doesn’t belong to you, asshole!” Ash shouts, then he turns his face to Jesse. His eyes are wide and terrified, while hers are shaking and devoid of life. “Jesse, listen to me. I’m going to get you out of here. You’re going to make it out of here.”

Finally, after some time of struggling, he feels a hand grip tightly onto his chin and yank his head to the side. His eyes collide with Golzine’s, who, after a few seconds is quickly tired of this boy thinking he can do what he wants without any consequence in life. “How exactly are you going to do that? Considering just two hours ago you were going to run away with this girl all the way back to Detroit and go into hiding.”

“I’ll _stay!_” Ash shouts, yanking his head off of Dino’s fingers and looking back to Orochi, noticing a switchblade flipping open in his hand. “And you! I’m sure Jesse would let you take the Stayt family if you just talked this shit out with her!”

“Well, she told me herself that once she takes the lead I’m dead,” he smirks flippantly.

“But those are just words!” Ash cries. “Let her go, and she’ll let you have it!”

Jesse’s eyes are trailing everywhere now, noticing Ash and the blade and how she’s completely helpless. She’s watching how they’d speak, how Ash is screaming with everything in him to try and keep her alive. He’s saying anything – _anything _– that they want to hear. She looks at their eyes. She feels heat in her own.

The tears are light. They’re enough to slip from her eyes but not enough for her chest to start heaving. She feels the heat in her eyes spread across her cheeks, she feels the chills on her back run through her veins. She looks over to Ash. She says his name.

“Aslan.”

Instantly, he stops speaking. His body is shaking while he’s heavily breathing, he’s still trying to find a way out. He’s still trying to find a way to get to her.

“Look in their eyes, Aslan,” she smiles sadly. “They’ve made up their minds already.”

The words froze Ash’s voice into complete silence. His lips are parted, like he wants to beg for her life some more, but he can’t argue with what she’s said, because she’s right. She’s nothing short of right. They’ve made up their minds, and they’re not going to listen to a damn thing he’s saying.

Dino only chuckles, sitting back in his seat. “It’s a shame that she’s smart. Must be terrible to know what’s coming.”

Ash’s eyes are wide with horror, and he doesn’t look away from her eyes. She’s crying in silence, yet she knows. Everyone in this room knows. She’s not stepping foot out of here alive. She doesn’t look away from him, she doesn’t try to deny this, not even when Orochi steps beside her and lean in with a grin too wide.

“I’ve _always_ wanted to hurt you like this,” he sneers. She doesn’t even flinch. Her eyes begin to grow hard and she does not allow any indication of fear to leak through on her face anymore. It’s like she’s looking the devil in the eye, but she keeps her line of sight on the path of an angel.

She’s still wearing the blouse he gave to her.

Dino gives the signal, and Orochi only nods. The first hit is a knee into her side. Ash immediately starts screaming again, trying to break free from his restraints but everything is holding him back. He tries to look away, but Golzine holds onto his face and pushes him forward, promising an even more horrible demise if he isn’t paying attention.

So he’s forced to watch. He watches the chains buckle and Jesse breaks down onto her knees, taking hits all across her body and face. He knows that the beating is just for torture. He knows they’re only dragging this out. They’re only doing this to relish in his screams – and he _screams_.

Jesse doesn’t make a sound. It’s like she turned herself off and refuses to show any indication of pain or make any noise at this point. Yet, after a while, that starts to falter. She’s tired. Her whole body hurts. Her face is beaten and bloody and they weren’t anywhere near done with her yet.

It’s about five minutes after this, when the two manage to lock eyes again, when Ash finally breaks down into desperate crying.

“_Please,_” he begs as his body is wrecked with sobs. “Please stop. Don’t kill her.”

They don’t listen to him. They only listen to her, as she gasps for breath and wheezes through pain, as she coughs up blood and fumbles in shame. It’s like they relish in those sounds. It’s like walking into fame.

Finally, they don’t know how long it was. They decide they’re tired. They decide they’re bored. They decide to untie Ash from his seat and let the chains lift Jesse off the ground, her body leaving behind bloodied streaks. Dino still keeps a firm grip on his arm while he struggles, repeatedly calling for Jesse, over and over, by her name.

“Finish it up, Orochi,” Dino commands.

He nods, walking around to the girl who’s struggling to even breathe. He pauses, he _waits _– wanting them to look at each other one last time. And they do. Ash watches through his sobbing, and it’s everything Jesse can do to close her eyes.

The knife comes in through her back and twists upwards in place. She winces in pain, her body tensing as she hisses and grips onto the chains that bind her there. Orochi rips the blade out of her after that, releasing the chains entirely and watching her plummet to the ground. Dino lets go of Ash at the same time.

Ash sprints down to where Jesse is, lunging for Orochi, but he’s flipped off and onto his back. The wind is knocked from his lungs for a minute, and he struggles to breathe – until he hears Jesse do the same.

He coughs a few times, scrambling up and crawling over to her. His hands are shaking, his body almost dying with her. He’s gentle as he scoops her up into his arms, hot blood staining his hands and the clothes sticking to his body. He can’t let himself sob over her right now. He needs to get her out of here. He needs to take her somewhere where she’ll stay _alive. _

They both know better at this point.

“Jesse, Jesse,” he pleads, shaking her. “Open your eyes. Open your eyes!”

She does, her breathing faint and her body weak. She’s losing a lot of blood and fast – it’ll be a miracle if he manages to even carry her out of the room alive, much less take her somewhere to be taken care of.

“It’s gonna be okay,” he tries to tell her, but he knows it’s not going to be. He knows that they’re not going to make it. He knows what lies. His voice hurts as he sobs. “I’m so sorry.”

“Aslan, listen to me,” Jesse breathes carefully. Her voice is quiet and unflinching. Her body is fighting for it all, but she has to go. “You have to leave.” She swallows hard, wincing in pain every time there’s a minute movement. “You’re not a lynx, Aslan. You’re a bird, and they haven’t clipped your wings yet.” She pushes herself up some to bring her face closer to his own. “Don’t let them clip your wings, Aslan.” She whispers sternly.

Jesse swallows hard, knowing this last breath is it. She knows that after this she has no time. She knows she’s run out of tears at this point in her life. She knows she can only say one thing. She knows it can’t be what she wants to say, even if she never got the chance to say it back to him. She takes in her final inhale, and pushes out the last word she’ll have to say.

“_Fly_.”

And just like that, it was over. All of his hopes and dreams. All that he wanted to do. All that he had chosen to love. All of this was gone – all of it was killed right in front of him within the timespan of fifteen minutes.

At this particular point in time of Ash’s life, he thought he had been through everything. He thought that there was a quota for pain and he’s had enough. Little did he know that it was only the beginning, that hell was so far from over, that agony had only just begun.

Jesse Stayt was dead. And with her, was Aslan Callenreese.

Ash holds onto her body and just sobs. Fragment after fragment of broken wails trickle down the hallway, as two souls die in a startling course of battle scars until their lives meet.

* * *

It’s roughly four o’clock in the morning when Shorter Wong wakes up to knocking on his door. Who the fuck could that be? Ash is gone to Detroit with Jesse by now, and last he checked there was no threat of emergency on the streets. Did he do something illegal and forgot completely about it? Probably.

Regardless, he still gets out of bed and walks to the front door. Shorter opens with a neutral greeting and realises that it’s Ash on the other side. It doesn’t register he’s not supposed to be here. It doesn’t register that he’s not with Jesse on the way to Detroit.

“Wow, for once you’ve finally learned to knock—” Shorter begins, but then his eyes are instantly drawn to Ash’s eyes, the way he’s covered in blood and shaking, and it doesn’t take too long for him to instantly realise who’s blood it belonged to. His eyes focus more in the dark, and he sees that Ash is still crying. His voice falls, growing more serious in tone and his eyes soften in sympathy. “—Oh my god.”

“Jesse,” Ash pushes through his sobs. “She—She’s—”

Shorter doesn’t let him finish. He just pulls him into his arms and holds onto him tightly, allowing Ash to finally break down and sob through everything that had just happened. He doesn’t ask for any details, but soon he’ll learn them on his own.

Soon he will learn about the night Ash was forced to watch the girl he loved beaten to death and bleed out in his arms. Soon he will learn her last words. Soon he will learn that despite the agony and sobbing, Golzine made him walk with Orochi to dispose of her body in the Hudson River. Soon he will learn her family name – that despite everything they had tried to do to keep her safe, it would all end in failure.

Shorter thinks back to how he wanted Ash to stay by his side, but now he hates himself for ever thinking that. He would never want Ash to stay here if it meant that. He didn’t want him to stay as a result of what just happened. Not like that. Not like this.

“I’m sorry,” Shorter whispers, his heart heavy and words holding more than one meaning. “I’m so sorry.”

* * *

When daylight arrives Ash looks completely dead in his eyes. He still forced himself to shower – to clean _her _blood off of his body – and he still forced himself to get dressed shortly after. But that doesn’t mean there’s light in his eyes anymore. That doesn’t mean that Aslan’s life belongs there anymore.

It’s like the day they first met. He was just a child, but there’s a monster hiding under his skin.

Ash hadn’t spoken a word since being forced back into Golzine’s mansion. Dino doesn’t allow him in his room at the time, forcing him to be right by his side at all costs. He couldn’t find any silence. There was only noise – and he was drowning.

They’re in his office now, and they’re visited by someone, by an exhausted and panicking man, struggling to find himself and his words. Golzine calls him Conner – he’s never heard that name before. Ash looks up, and suddenly he knows this face. He knows who he belongs to _immediately. _

“I thought you were supposed to be in Detroit by now,” Dino comments calmly.

Conner nods, but then shakes his head shortly afterwards. “It’s my daughter. She’s gone missing.” He rummages through his wallet. “I went to wake her up this morning but her room completely upside down and she wasn’t there. I can’t find her anywhere.”

He pulls out a picture, saying that this is what she looks like, and he turns it around, showing the picture to the two of them. Ash feels like he’s been punched in the gut.

“Her name is Jesse,” Conner explains. “I don’t know if either of you have happened to have seen her around recently or know of any places I might be able to find her.”

_The Hudson River. _

Dino studies the picture and slowly shakes his head. There isn’t even a hint of recognition in his eyes, while Ash couldn’t peel himself away from the photograph in horror. Conner notices this look on his face, and instantly he’s hopeful about it. “You’ve seen her, haven’t you?”

Ash looks up, suddenly realising the state of his eyes and feeling the pressure of Golzine’s glare on his neck. He does not shiver in his skin, but he does know he’s suddenly faced with two options. He feels Dino’s hand on his shoulder, and he feels him _squeeze – _it hurts, but he knows that he would be dead within seconds if he said what he wants to.

Ash just swallows and shakes his head. “I just remember bumping into her yesterday at a thrift shop. She was buying a new blouse and I just thought she looked pretty. I had no idea who she was.”

The life in Conner’s eyes suddenly drains again. Ash can’t blame him. He’s there with him, too. Dino pats his shoulder twice before clearing his throat and smoothing his voice again. “My men are incredible at finding people. If you’d like, I can send some out to help search for Jesse for you.”

The way her name sounds coming from Dino’s mouth immediately makes Ash want to projectile vomit. It doesn’t sound right coming from him. It sounds like blood crawling against tile. It sounds like sickness.

“I would love that,” Conner sighs in relief. “How much would I owe you for it?”

Dino waves it off, his smile menacing and his tone condescending. “Nothing at all. It would be my pleasure,” he snakes a hand around Ash’s side and holds him close by his hip. “Every family needs an heir, or else they would just crumble apart. She’s the future, and without her, your family would have no future. I would hate to see the Stayt family lost in the dark.”

Now it makes more sense. It wasn’t just about Ash. It wasn’t just about Jesse. It was about destroying the Stayt family from the inside-out, further increasing Golzine’s own power. He squeezes Ash’s skin, and he tenses in reaction.

“Thank you,” Conner looks like a spear had been torn from his side. “Thank you so much.” He looks back at Ash and debates for just a moment, before handing him the picture of Jesse. “If you find her, please give her this. Tell her to come find me.”

Ash just nods, putting it in his own wallet and making sure to hide it later so Golzine can’t take her away. Or perhaps he may just let him keep it as a reminder of sorts. With that, Conner leaves, closing the door behind him and leaving the room with wall-to-wall echoes bellowing silence, heavy with noise.

Golzine slides his fingers up Ash’s shirt and it takes everything in him not to scream down the hall. “Good boy,” he murmurs. There’s a specific kind of trapped Ash feels in every situation of his life, but this is a special kind. She’s gone, and he’s alone – trapped within these walls and within her murderer’s embrace. “I wanted to surprise you with this earlier, but now’s a better time.”

He turns Ash around to where they face each other. Truly, there’s evil in his eyes, and Ash is doing everything in his power not to inherit this evil side. He doesn’t raise his voice, and he’s left with no choice but to listen, but to hear this monster speak.

“I’m sending you off for some training,” Dino says calmly. “You will meet your trainer next week, and he’ll take over from there. He’s from Russia.” Ash does not give any emotional indication. Nor does he speak. He just listens and he watches as Dino’s lips lean in and smile cheek to cheek. “She’s right about you being a pretty little bird. Too bad we have to clip your wings.”

The fire hot rage courses through his body like iron driving through bricks. Immediately, his bloodstream is activated like a match against charcoal, and he spits, since he can’t do much else of anything. Golzine only laughs, then he shoves Ash against his desk and keeps him there. He waits for just a moment, before he leans back, deciding that he’s not going to do this himself.

“Strip,” he demands, his voice low and harsh. He hesitates for a moment, before finally, he does. The rest happens anyway.

It was at that moment when Ash knew just how much he wanted to die.

* * *

It’s pushing midnight when Shorter watches a drunk Ash fumble into his kitchen. He doesn’t say anything about it, but he does try to summon some words that may make him feel a little easier.

“I’ll take the couch tonight,” he suggests calmly, walking over to the hollow shell of an empty boy and noticing the bruises on his ribs, the swelling across his cheek. “Do you need anything? Some water? Ibuprofen?”

Ash just shakes his head, before he looks at Shorter with battle glared eyes. There was a hint of plum in his mouth and sprinkled just below his eyes. They both knew better – he hated pity so much more than he hated spite.

They don’t say anything for a moment, before Ash finally reaches up and pulls Shorter down by his face and crashes those untouched lips to his own. At first, Shorter lets it happen, maybe he’s trying to cling on to someone else and maybe he’s trying to see if a kiss from someone else might remind him of Jesse – but then there’s a tongue prodding down his throat. He now knows otherwise.

Shorter pushes him off, only for his back to be pressed against the wall and hungry kisses devour him again. They seem lost. Desperate. Wanting to forget.

“You wanted this, didn’t you?” Ash tries to reason instead of breaking into sobs. He holds Shorter still, grinding their bodies together as if it could convince him of anything otherwise.

“You don’t,” Shorter says.

“It won’t hurt me,” Ash flashes a look with those demon emerald eyes. It’s a look Shorter’s seen before, but to be on the receiving end makes him react like it’s _witchcraft_. Ash brings his voice down to a breath, now, leaning in to place his lips on his neck. “I’m already prepped.”

_Oh my god. _

Shorter’s mind is running through a thousand thoughts while his skin tingles under each kiss Ash leaves there. He closes his eyes tightly, breathing deeply through his nose while he holds tightly onto Ash’s arms. This can’t be happening. It can’t be going on—

“Ash, stop,” Shorter finally tells him while pushing him off of his body. He’s trying to hide his evident arousal, and he’s failing miserably. But he knows that this can’t happen. He knows that it shouldn’t be allowed. He swallows hard. “We’re not doing this.”

Ash breathes carefully, clearly trying to block his mind out from the memory after memory scarring itself in his brain from today and the night before. He wants to let it go. He wants to forget, but it won’t go away. He wets his lips and realises that his throat is dry. All of him is dry. He wants to drown.

“I need some water,” Ash murmurs, finally. He can’t even swallow, and he glides over to the sink and turns on the tap. He doesn’t grab a cup, he just leans in like it’s a water fountain, and Shorter watches him. He also watches, while he rehydrates himself, that he finally sees tears slipping from his eyes. Tears that he held in all day. Tears that he wasn’t allowed to shed.

Shorter is careful when he walks over, then he turns off the kitchen sink. They look at each other while Ash raises his head, water flowing down his neck from his chin. “I’m sorry, Ash,” he says, finally.

There it was – the final message he needed to finally let himself crumble apart and break. Ash’s face twists and his body starts to shake, his chest caves in on himself. It was always the most painful thing Shorter had ever witnessed – seeing Ash start to cry – and while he finally breaks down into sobs he just walks over and pulls him into his arms once again.

He holds Ash closer now, letting him sob, remembering that behind these murderous eyes and layers of sex, he’s just a child. Aslan Callenreese is just a little boy. Ash Lynx may be a caged bird but within his heart and between the bars, a spark of Aslan is still in there. There’s only a fragile spark left in him – but it’s only a matter of time before someone ignites that spark again.

At this point he stopped caring if it’s him that ignites it. If it’s not him, he swears to protect anybody – _anybody _– that breathes life back into Aslan again. Even as he sobs himself into sleep, Shorter tucks him into his bed, watching him finally breathe. There’s a slimmer of Aslan there while he sleeps, there’s still that anchor that means he’s not gone yet.

Shorter watches, then he swears. He swears right then he will stay by him, even in death. He promises that, and he promises this to Aslan, who seems to be the only one that can hear.

* * *

It’s been a week since Ash has landed back in New York City. Dino knows this, but he’s letting him run around for just a while before he has someone go fetch for him. It’s been six months since he initially left for training, and the biting cold of February is a stark contrast to the constant heat of the sun he was feeling while he was under Blanca’s training.

He fucking hates New York. He hates the sky, he hates the limelight, he hates anybody that calls it the city of dreams and majesty. It’s a dark, brutal, animal cage, and anybody trapped inside isn’t going to make it out alive – or at the very least, unscratched.

He’s only seen Shorter once since being here, like a ghost, and everybody that knows him knows the instant change in himself before and after his training. It’s like his heart had hardened into metal instead of a glass frame, the visible spark of Aslan unseen and unheard – in a way, he doesn’t even remember his own name.

Ash has to remind himself every so often who he is, where he belongs, what he’s supposed to do. These reminders aren’t visible, but they’re there. He’s hiding his wings. He’s hiding himself from everybody. Because the moment he shows them one more time to anybody – _anybody _– he knows he’s going to fly. One way or another, and nobody will stop him or get in his way.

He’s promised her that. He’ll promise her again.

It’s snowing, now. Floating, yet crashing in the wind. Ash hasn’t seen snow like this in a very long time.

The entirety of New York feels the exact same. The roads haven’t changed. The people still avoid his lane, and everything he wants most is miles away and impossible for him to find in this kind of life anymore. It’s still New York. It’s still Golzine.

Ash finds himself in Central Park tonight, inches away from a body of water. It’s named after Jackie Kennedy, but that’s not the person Ash’s is thinking about in the evening cold. She still haunts him, sometimes. Her voice will come to him while she sleeps or he’ll feel her touch seep through his skin. He’ll always have to look. He’ll always have to remember why she’s not there.

He’s looking at a picture given to him six months back. He still has one more of her saved, one that she took one night after a night of fun and drinking on his fifteenth birthday. He looks into her eyes. He remembers her face. He remembers the blouse he bought for her. He wonders if she was buried in it.

A girl. Murdered that past summer. Fourteen.

Her name was Jesse.

The fucked up thing about it is that she doesn’t even feel dead. She feels like she’s just asleep, somewhere without memory, floating far, far away. It feels like she’s a simple phone call away, on the other side of the world, as if time was the only thing holding them back instead of it being death itself. It feels like she’s never left. It feels like she’s still alive. Somewhere. Painfully, out there, in the middle of the great wide world, somewhere, and alive.

Remember her words. Remember her eyes. Perhaps one day he’ll see her again. Perhaps one day, he can learn to fly. And he will. Someday, drowning in a vast body of water, hands will pick him up and he will remember that his wings were not taken apart just yet.

Something in Ash knows this. Something in Ash knows that one day he will not have to weep in silence and mourn of anyone any time longer. Something in Ash knows that his soul will belong to someone, and that someone will never be taken away from him, no matter what the circumstance.

He’s promised Jesse that he’s going to fly. He plans to hold onto this promise, however that may be, but Ash knows despite it all he will learn again to love, because he never truly forgot.

He may be on the ground, he may still be in mourning, but that does not mean he can’t fly yet. That does not mean death has come to Aslan. He’s still there, and he’s only waiting – waiting for the day to finally break through this fragile heart and take life into this shattered boy once again.

He promises her that he will fly. He promises her he will never forget that he is only Aslan. He promises her that he’s not a lynx, and he will never let anybody clip his tattered wings. He promises her to remember his name, that one day he will fly away.

And he will.


End file.
